Sin Nombre
by H.T.Marie
Summary: Laying low in New Mexico on a run of the mill chupacabra hunt, the boys find out the biggest threat is sometimes the smallest. Sick Dean. Hurt Sam. A few OCs and gore. For Heather03nmg.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N:** This is a fairly long fic, over 40,000 words written so far, somewhat plotty. It's written for the lovely **Heather03nmg's **birthday. Her birthday's not for a couple more weeks, and since we're going to be in Chicago that weekend, I figured there's no point waiting until then to start posting as neither of us will be reading that weekend—unless Jensen and Jared care to tattoo our names on their chests—LOL. I haven't written the end yet, and the middle needs quite a bit of editing before I will feel comfortable posting it—I'm not really comfortable with this, but you can only poke at something so much before it pokes back. I'll try to post a chapter a week. Maybe 8 or 10 chapters total. It starts with a lot of setup. I apologize for that, but if you know Heather, you know she asked for Hurt or Sick Dean, and there' s plenty of that in this. There will also be Hurt Sam, though my Sam's never limp. I like him Rambo-esque. RAWR. I won't be posting this on LJ until after it's finished, so read it here as I post or wait until it's finished and read it there. It's all good. Just let me know what you think.

**A/N2:** This is set in season 2 after Nightshifter. I played with the timeline a little. Superwiki says end of March beginning of April. I'm pushing it more to the middle of April for seasonal purposes. Just pretend Heart never happened. I do. Also, this story has no bigger message. It's just sick and whump for the sake of sick and whump.

Beta'd by the lovely **Chemm80** in all her one-handed glory.

**Warnings:** Language. I don't pull any punches. And there's innuendo and boys being boys.

**Disclaimer:** I want them. That's it. I also want to get paid for this stuff, but I don't, so this is just fiction for fun.

**Happy Birthday, Heather. I am officially your bitch.**

**Sin Nombre**

There's a little black spot on the sun today.

There is--and it's not a cheesy song lyric blaring from Dean's alarm clock, care of whatever local station broadcasts in this part of New Mexico--just the first thing that runs through Sam's mind when he blinks his eyes open and discovers there's something wrong with the sun here. There are spots in it.

He's not surprised. There's something wrong here, period.

Of course there are spots on the sun. They're sleeping in a friggin' barn. There are spots on everything, some of them with wings and legs, and some just left behind by things with wings and legs. The place is swimming with dust, pollen, hay chaff, powdered sh..., er, stuff Sam doesn't even want to think about, all of which have made him a red-eyed, wheezing zombie.

Immune to demon viruses but allergic to dust and pollen. He sneezes hard into the sheet he's got pressed over his mouth and nose, groans at the itch in his eyes. Fuck irony. Fuck yin and yang and cosmic balance. This just friggin' sucks. Four days and counting, and he doesn't seem to be building any sort of tolerance. He's really tired of walking with an internal slosh, and the lines around his eyes from constantly squinting back the burn are about two days away from becoming geological wonders of the world.

Dean and his brilliant ideas.

'It's New Mexico,' he'd said. 'Miles and miles from big cities, jails, and big, bad police officers who want to put us _in_ jail,' he'd said. 'Perfect place to lay low.'

Dean thought. Dean said. Dean, Dean, Dean... And when exactly did Sam turn into Jan Brady?

It's perfect all right. At least it would be, if no one lived there. New Mexico in March, after a couple hundred years of 'civilized' cultivation is like Mardi Gras for pollen and spores. Sam's sinuses can't decide which they hate more: last fall's alfalfa starting to mold away in the next loft, the sorghum raising a cloud of dust every time it drops out of the gravity boxes and into the wheelbarrows of the hired help, or Jeannie Cagel's juniper bushes--the ones Dean purposely runs his hand through every time he walks by.

Sam's gonna kill him. Slowly.

Still, as much as it grates on the last nerve in Sam's head that's not throbbing with sinus pressure, it's not the worst gig they've ever had. As missions go, this one's far from impossible and won't require any fancy wires and cables ala Tom Cruise-before-Katie-Holmes. At least they're getting paid.

Well, they'll get paid if Sam doesn't drown in his own choke before they bag the chupacabra.

The Cagel ranch is well-run, organized, as clean as a goat ranch can be. It's also got a goat sucker problem and no empty rooms at the inn in which to house the weary hunters they've hired to resolve the issue. How biblical. He briefly wonders which one of them is Mary and which is Joseph before he turns over on his cot, looks down out of the hay loft to the barn below where Armando and Francisco, the hired hands, are already starting morning chores. It's inhuman to be that awake at this hour of the morning. Maybe one of them is a were-chupacabra. Armando, in particular, seems to have a spring in his step that makes Sam want to put thumb tacks in his shoes.

Oh yeah, they need to bag this puppy and be gone. This place is grinding Sam to a miserable pulp.

Pulling the sheet away from his nose to test the air, he takes a tentative breath, feels it scratch over his sinuses until a steady trickle drips down his throat. He groans and puts the soggy-sheet-turned-oversized-kleenex back over his face. This sucks. And blows.

"What the...? Shit!" From behind Sam, there's a thud and the sound of sheets being yanked off the neighboring cot. "Sam!"

Sam takes his good-natured time rolling over. Dean was sleeping soundly thirty seconds ago. The earth hasn't moved, and the sky hasn't fallen in that amount of time, so Sam's sure he's fine. His brother's kind of a drama queen before he's had his morning coffee. Dean's probably the only person on the planet who requires massive doses of caffeine just to mellow out.

"Sam!"

_Big girl._

"Dude, what?"

Sam figures out what the major malfunction is all on his own. 'Cause he's kinda awesome like that. Dean doesn't have to answer, which is a good thing, because he seems preoccupied with standing in the corner of the loft waving his trusty under-pillow knife like a light saber. Sam gives himself a good dramatic pause before he acknowledges the issue. It's what any kid brother would do in the same situation. Payback's a bitch.

"I told you, Sam. I told you not to feed that cat! I told you it wouldn't do its job if you fed it."

Sam raises his eyebrows indifferently. 'I told you so,' isn't an acceptable alternative for 'good morning' where he comes from.

The thing is, Dean? He has a thing about rats. He says it's the beady little eyes. Sam doesn't suppose the fact that this is a mouse, not a rat, and it has no eyes, because well, it has no head at all, is any consolation. He doesn't suppose there'll _be_ any consolation either, considering the decapitated rodent is smack in the middle of Dean's pillow. It's kinda balanced on the abyss of Dean's head-dent. Must've had its tail directly...

Dean completes the mental picture by grimacing and scrubbing his forearm down the front of his face. Again. And again. Dean's taken bog beast spit right between the eyes without flinching--Sam's seen him do it--but apparently rodent derriere has poked him directly in his mind's eye. Sam knows the look. He'd worn it himself for a week after walking in on Dean with that girl on the pool table back in...yeah, Sam's not going there.

Sam must do a pretty poor job of looking concerned. If the Elvis quirk tugging at his upper lip doesn't say, 'hunka, hunka, you're a giant girl,' then the raised eyebrows directed at the way Dean holds the sheet fisted at his hip while brandishing the knife say, 'gay naked fencing,' loud and clear.

Dean flushes red and drops the sheet, extricating his feet from the tangle with a roll of his eyes that says, 'bitch!'

Sam huffs, "Jerk!" and punches his pillow with his head.

The man of the hour, Theo, the black-and-white barn cat, jumps up onto Sam's cot and nudges his head into the palm of his hand. Now that's a 'good morning.' Sam sits up, obliging the tomcat with a rub between the ears.

"He did do his job," Sam says, more to the cat than to Dean who's pulling on his jeans with a line in his forehead the size of the Grand Canyon. "He killed the mouse. Didn't you, Theo? There's no law that says he has to eat it."

Dean doesn't find that funny, and after tossing the mouse, pillow and all, down the hay chute, he just slides on his boots and climbs down the ladder without even tying the laces.

Figures.

Pretty much every day in this place has started with some form of major suckage. Sure, some of it's probably leftover tension from the realization that Victor Henriksen and, well, every major law enforcement agency in the country is on their asses. But more of it is Dean just up and deciding the best way to deal with it all is to stagger out into the wilderness like Mad Max in exile from Thunderdome.

Sam's not a wilderness guy. He likes rooms with walls and air conditioning. Surely there's a convenient basement _somewhere..._ He's decided he hates New Mexico, hates goats with hard heads that land in soft places, hates the smell of goats, goat dander, motes in sunlight that are anything but sparkly, just hates it all.

But then, Dean's not the only one who can't function without his morning coffee. Give him an hour, a couple of breakfast burritos made with homemade tortillas and Mexican cheese, add half a pot of coffee, and he might only strongly dislike New Mexico. Until then, hate is as good a word as any.

He leaves the cat curled on the foot of his bed and starts to dress, finds out he's used the last sheet off the roll of toilet paper he smuggled out of the guest bathroom, and ends up blowing his nose--blowing it a LOT--into an old t-shirt. It might be Dean's. With his sinuses mostly clear, he wrinkles up his nose and grimaces. Smells like Dean's. Then, he sneezes, wipes the tears out of his red eyes with the sleeve of his shirt, and trudges off after his brother, a sloshing in his chest that makes him feel heavy in a way he can't blame on his steel-toed shoes. Yeah, he hates this place.

Nobody will be gladder than Sam when they finally bag this goat sucker.

XX

Goat sucker, as it turns out, is not the best name for the thing they end up killing. Just the baby ones eat goats, and only because goats are mostly defenseless and come in large herds. Well, so do sheep but the wooly buggers give them hair balls that knit themselves into sweaters by the time they come out the other end. Adult chupacabras prefer bigger quarry--cows, horses, the occasional semi-trailer full of border hoppers. Yeah. Yum.

This one's not a baby, but it has one on board. It's broody, looking for lots of bite-sized morsels and ready to pop its maternal cork at any second. Okay, that's a disgusting turn of phrase, and Sam would protest the vulgarity of it if _popping _wasn't exactly what she'd done. An M80 down the old cakehole will have that effect.

"You know, we might be the first and only hunters to ever encounter a pregnant chupacabra. Might've been nice to leave a few bits and pieces bit enough to study."

"I had my own research to conduct." Dean shrugs him off, wincing and putting a hand to his back as he does. The trap took him all day to dig.

"What research?"

"Needed to know whether a goat sucker can survive swallowing a cherry bomb." He pulls a chunk of bloody meat out of a nearby bush and tosses it into the center of the debris field with a satisfied smirk. "Now I know."

"Well, thanks to you, we still don't know anything about how chupacabra reproduce. We don't even know if she was fixing to have one really big, really ugly baby, or if this is all that's left of a litter." He does a double take at the fistfuls of ragged flesh he's studying. "Hell, I cannot even believe I'm looking through this mess."

Digging through a pile of guts is not something he'd usually do, not for research purposes or any other purposes. There will always be other chupacabra. It's just, something about this hunt feels wrong. Ominous. Sure, as far as he knows there's nothing really supernatural about a chupacabra-- just bad genes, isolation, and hybrid vigor, he supposes--but considering the amount of damage it'd done on the Cagel's goat ranch, the months it had eluded Don Cagel and his posse of immigrant ranch hands, it just seems like it should have been harder to kill. This doesn't feel finished. Though what he expects to find in a pile of steaming guts is beyond him. He rises from his kneeling position, the creaking of his stretched tendons most likely due to being baked dry and re-sized like Shrinky Dinks in the New Mexican sun.

With a last grimace, he chucks the entrails back into the glop, stands gazing at his gore-coated fingers. He wishes they'd thought to keep latex gloves in their med kit. Dean's offer of some Magnum condoms to put over his hands hadn't really provided the tension breaking guffaw of laughter Sam's sure it had been intended to elicit. He doesn't even want to know why Dean has Magnums. If Sam doesn't need 'em, then... ah well, he's not getting into the grower versus shower debate while standing over goat sucker bits.

He's being pissy, but he has every right to be. He kicks dirt over the remains just for good measure, glaring back toward the ranch as the sound of mariachi music wafts in on the grease-heavy smoke rolling over the hardpan. Quitting time on a Sunday night is apparently fiesta time in the bunkhouse. It's enough to make Sam want to puke.

"Smells like dinner calling," Dean says, his eyes heavy-lidded and a little glassy in what Sam assumes is anticipation. Sam can practically hear his mouth watering. "Kidwiches, yum."

"Dick," Sam mumbles under his breath as he trudges behind. He doesn't even bother to wipe his hands on his jeans before opening the car door. A soggy towel hits him in the side of the head before he gets seated. Sam knows for a fact Dean used it to mop up sweat while they dug the trench for the trap. He silently hopes it wasn't used on anything below the belt, can't be sure, though, not with the memory of his own sweat trickling down, down, down past the waistband of his baggy jeans still fresh in his mind.

"You're not still pissed about the goat," Dean guesses, more a statement than a question.

"Of course not," Sam sneers. "We've been sleeping in a barn for almost two weeks now. I wake up every morning, drowning in my own..." he swallows, "...secretions. I have to sneak through the yard on the way to the toilet in order to avoid being a)head-butted by a billy goat, or b)pecked bald by a banty rooster. And for my trouble..."

"_Our_ trouble," Dean interrupts.

"Fine," Sam rants, "And for our trouble, we get a baby goat on a spit. Why the hell would I be pissed about that?"

Dean eases back, eyes fixed forward even though there's no road between here and there. Sam catches the twitch under his jaw as Dean bites back something, shakes his head, then lets out something that probably isn't much better. "C'mon, Sam, the Cagels are paying us good. The goat is just extra, a thank you from the ranch hands. What'd you expect when they asked you to pick one out? That we were going to buy it a collar and some dog tags, call it Norman, and keep it in the backseat?"

Sam rubs his hands on the thighs of his jeans in exasperation. Dean's right. He should've known better. But still. "It was just a baby."

"Which is why they looked at you like a giant lawn gnome when you picked it."

"I didn't think they were going to barbecue it. If I had, I'd have picked the one that head-butted me when I walked through the yard the other morning." He crosses his legs protectively, refrains from forming a makeshift cup of his hands while he pushes the memory back into the recesses of his mind where he wishes it would stay.

"Did you miss the fact that this is a meat ranch? Everything out here is measured by the pound." Dean adopts a slightly vindictive slant to his eyes, lashes sweeping lower beneath a sliding gaze. "Besides. You did your job, Sammy boy. You killed it. There's no law that says you have to eat it."

"Bite me."

On a roll, Dean smirks. "It's fine if you don't eat. That's just more for me." He gets a twinkle in his eye, turns, and asks, "Hey, Sam? D'ya think that makes me a goat sucker, too?"

Sam bites his lip in order to keep a straight face, laugh lines tugging against the determined set of his brow. "Depends." He shrugs.

"On what?"

"Which part of the goat you're..." he waggles his brows, "... eating."

Dean's head cocks, chin jutting out toward the window like he's just taken a hit to the jaw, but his grin doesn't fade. "Just for that, Sam, since you picked the scrawniest goat in the herd," He stops mid-sentence to clear his throat again, trying not to laugh at his own joke before delivering the punchline. "I'm gonna tell 'em you want a puppy to make up the difference."

The laugh line tethers snap, and Sam's eyebrow drops like a dead weight. Is that supposed to be a joke? 'Cause if it isn't...well, eew. "Dean, you don't think...?"

Dean groans, finally rolls his head in Sam's direction, his forehead peaked like it's just waiting for a giant "L" sign to be tacked in the middle.

"No, Sam, I do NOT think they would've made you chihuahua tacos for breakfast. That's sick. Can't even believe you went there." He shrugs, a smug expression twisting the far side of his face. "Gotta say I'm disappointed you'd entertain such a racist, derogatory, stereotypical..." He pauses in search of the right word, settles on, "...notion."

"Notion?"

The one lowered eyebrow meets with the quirked lip and flared nostril like some old, fat aunt has just pinched his cheek and pushed his head between her breasts. "First of all, you totally planted that 'notion' in my head, Mr. I-Eat-Kids-And-Like-It. Secondly, since when do you use the word notion?" he asks before an image pops into his head that answers his question and makes him wish he'd never, ever heard the word. "Oh. God. You totally read the _Nancy's Notions_ catalog in the Cagel's guest bathroom."

Dean ducks his gaze out the driver's side window, a hint of color on his cheek that's more than sunburn. He coughs into the shoulder of his jacket, but Sam doesn't drop the subject. Finally, he purses his lips, swims his head back and forth, and says, "What was I supposed to do? The tamales weren't sitting right...weren't sitting at ALL...and Nancy only had craft and hobby mags in the rack." He turns back to Sam, the blush fading behind a sneer that makes Sam nervous for his already sensitive stomach. "For future reference, though, I have the last three issues of 'Racked Up,' stashed in my bag." He pauses, pleased with himself for having devised a contingency plan for bathroom distress. "I think we need some secret code for, 'I'm gonna be here awhile, send porn and a match.'"

"Screw you."

"No." Dean seems to ponder, then says, "That's becoming your new catch phrase. Bound to cause confusion. Ow." He rubs at the back of his neck for a second, his smirk slipping, but the next pothole they hit jerks him back to the moment.

"We need something that says 'lavatory distress' without, you know, actually saying it. Was thinking of something more like, uh, how 'bout this?" He pauses dramatically, for what, Sam can only guess with dread, then dons an imaginary sombrero and says, "Yo quiero taco bell," complete with bad Mexican accent.

"Dean!"

"Fine, then. How 'bout, 'release the hostages'?" He says the last bit like he's shouting into a megaphone. It's loud enough to boom back off the windshield, and he flinches at his own voice.

Sam shakes his head but has to choke back a laugh. Times like these, bathroom humor is probably the only thing that actually is funny. Must be the neanderthal allele on the Y chromosome.

"How about, instead, we do the same thing we do with everything that matters?"

"What's that, Sammy?"

"Not talk about it."

Dean hooks his thumbs under the steering wheel and shrugs while waving the rest of his fingers, the half of his face Sam can see twisted into a goofy smirk. "Fine. Have it your way. Just remember that the next time you've got a major code brown and are on your last sheet of Charmin."

Sliding his index finger nervously across his forehead, Sam says, "That only happened once. And I'm never ordering chicken salad again."

"Whatever," Dean dismisses. "I'll just leave you for housekeeping next time."

Instead of arguing, Sam huffs and leans back in his seat, relaxed for the first time since they've been here. Thing is, Sam knows Dean won't leave him for housekeeping. Dean won't leave him, period. And as miserable as he's been, it feels pretty good to know that.

XX

He can't bow out of the barbecue all together. That would be considered rude, and since he'd rather sleep in the barn than in the car on the side of the road somewhere, Sam puts in an appearance, but no way in hell he's eating any 'kidwiches' as Dean has taken to calling them. One more thump on the back accompanied by, "C'mon, it's the other red meat," and Sam's gonna have to see how well the steel toes on his boots hold up against the blunt force of Dean's shins. Or maybe it's the other way around. No, he's definitely more worried about his shoes at this point. They don't buy his size off the shelf.

Dean doesn't seem to have any issues reaping their reward, though Sam had nearly had to drag him out of the hay loft after they showered in the bunkhouse and went back to change into slightly less dirty clothes before dinner. Seems a long day of trap digging in the sun makes a soft cot more appealing than food. Sam never thought he'd see the day. He'll give Dean shit about getting old later, after he survives the Great New Mexican Kid Roast.

Tired or not, now that he's here, Dean's not wasting time feeling sorry for the goat. He started with half a dozen taquito rolls of barbecue with pico de gallo, some fresh green sauce, and Mexican cheese on homemade tortillas, and he's down to one. Sam finds that a little hard to believe considering Dean hasn't really stopped talking/grunting to the Cagel's dog since they slid into the picnic table. Some people talk to dogs like babies, their voices all high and squeaky. Dean apparently talks to them in pig latin or something. Sam wonders how he didn't know that before now and if he should maybe tell Dean to stop doing it. By the way his brother keeps clearing his throat, he's gotta be straining something. But then, if he loses his voice, maybe Sam won't have to deal with anymore toilet humor for the day. Besides, the dog seems to like it.

The poor Australian shepherd's name is Jethro. Not a tragedy in itself, except Dean's dubbed him Tull, because you know, a metal band with lyrics like, "eyeing little girls with bad intent," and "snot is running down his nose," is so much classier to be named after than the doofus from The Beverly Hillbillies. Sometimes, Dean amuses himself too much to be healthy, and Sam's not just talking about alone time in the bathroom. Times like these, Sam thinks he'd be better off trying to socialize a feral child than get Dean to unlearn the Winchester survival etiquette.

As if on cue, Dean slides away from Sam and pats the seat, sings, "Sitting on the park bench," while doing air guitar, and Jethro jumps up beside him. Doesn't even put his doggie elbows on the table. Dog has better manners than Dean, except when his tail starts wagging and smacks Dean in the back. The way Dean grunts and arches away in response, Sam'd think there were barbs on the end.

Dean catches Sam's suspicious glance in his direction and says, "Touch of sunburn, I think."

"Big baby," Sam teases. Dean does have a knack for burning, and a 'no way in Hell' attitude about letting Sam put on the sun block. He shrugs off Sam's gaze, and Sam narrows it to a glare before glancing away. Let Dean apply his own burn cream, too, then. Serves him right.

At the end of the bench, Armando and Francisco each work on their own plate of barbecue, grinning around bottles of Corona. Sam lifts his glass of iced tea in thanks for the meal, nods his gratitude. They smile back around lime wedges, eyes crinkling at the corners from the tart. Sam, of course, passed on the Corona. Even with a plugged nose, the stuff smells like donkey piss, and lime doesn't help at all.

The two workers are either brothers or cousins. The Mexican system of surnames always throws Sam for a loop. They're good guys, though, kidicide notwithstanding. In the nearly two weeks Sam and Dean have been here, Sam's figured out that the hired hands get paid at the end of the day and head into town three times a week to send the money home. The Cagels pay well, but Armando and Francisco never come back with more than a case of beer and a carton of smokes, though Sam has seen Francisco tuck the occasional stuffed animal under the hem of his shirt and wipe something from the corner of his eye while staring into his well-worn billfold. He's sure there's a grinning daughter or son somewhere in Mexico missing a daddy. Hunting's not the only lifestyle it sucks to be born into. Poverty is its own cross to bear, tears families apart just as effectively.

Cappy leans back on the bench across the table from them, seems almost to talk through his nose while savoring each lungful of smoke from his pipe, allowing barely a wisp to escape. His name's Don, or so says the mailbox, but the handshake and two pint coffee mug both go by the name Cappy. Could be a military designation, Sam supposes, but the D.V.M. takes up all the room on the letter head, so it's hard to say. Sam can see the old codger as a retired captain of something. He seems strong for a man of seventy, disciplined, up at the crack of dawn, could easily have commanded a ship of some sort. Heck, with the little glimmer in his eyes, Sam can easily imagine him at the helm of the Starship Enterprise, pretty green alien women on each of his muscled arms. His Jeannie must be one hell of a woman. After all, her name's the first one listed on the personal check the old bear paid them with.

"So it was what, then?" Cappy asks between puffs on his pipe. "One of those mutant wild dogs that been in the news?"

The question's directed at Dean, but Dean's distracted, most likely by a mouthful of barbecue. He looks up with a blank expression, his gaze slightly trailing the motion of his head. If there's any doubt whether he heard, it's erased by the, "Hmm?" he gives in reply.

Yeah, that's his big brother, all right. Eats himself stupid while Sam handles the explanations. He's definitely got a kick in the shins coming just as soon a Jethro moves. Way to be professional.

"That depends," Sam intercedes. Scratching the back of his head, he asks, "What do _you _think it was?"

"Think it was a goddamned goat sucker's what I think!" Cappy says, banging the bowl of his pipe on the lip of his coffee mug for emphasis.

"Chupacabra..." Armando and Francisco chime in, no grins around lime slices to indicate they're anything other than dead serious.

Sam laughs. A little backwoods superstition is sometimes a better ally than civilized disbelief. "Well, then, I'd have to agree. She was a chupacabra."

"She?" Cappy asks. He tips back slightly so Olga, the housekeeper, can take his plate, leans back in with a twinkle in his eye. "How do you know? Did you look up her skirt?" He jerks upright when Jeannie comes up behind him and smacks him between the shoulder blades hard enough that he almost drops his pipe. Sam really likes her.

Dean chimes in but not before clearing his throat twice. Loudly. Sam hopes he's biting his tongue as well. "We found her den. Looked like she was setting up house. Only thing it was missing was a picket fence and a sandbox. Was probably due any day."

"Huh," Cappy says, rolling his lips around the end of his pipe thoughtfully. "She was _that_ canine, was she? I'd have thought monsters like that reproduced by, I dunno, mitosis or something."

"D'ya think that's important?" Sam asks.

Cappy shrugs. "Dunno. Just... the idea that she adopted canine denning behavior makes me wonder how else she takes after dogs. Wonder if Daddy's coming home for dinner, if you know what I mean."

"Maybe a mate?" And there it is. That little niggling tug at the hairs on the back of Sam's neck becomes a full-blown head jerk into the locked and upright position.

"Or a whole pack..." Dean adds, his face pale with realization, a blush on the tops of his cheeks that must be from the sun. He pushes his empty plate to the center of the table as Sam crosses his arms in resignation, his thumbs smoothing at the wrinkles of his shirt beneath his armpits. He doesn't feel much like celebrating anymore either.

"It's a thought," Cappy says with a nod. He looks from Sam to Dean and back again, lowers the pipe from his mouth with one hand. "I tell you what. You boys look like Hell. Let me make you an offer. Twice your fee to stay another week. You don't have to do anything, just hang around and rest up before you get back to doing whatever it is you do. If we see more of our goat sucking friends, then you're here to take care of the problem. If not, then live and let live. No harm, no foul. Whattaya say?"

Before anyone can answer (and really, how can they say no?), Jethro starts heaving on the bench beside him, and Sam kicks away from the table just in time to keep his feet clean. The dog hawks up what looks to be at least half a dozen goat taquitos. Sam glares at his brother, because he gets three guesses where the food came, from and the first two don't count. Dean takes one look, flushes red, then white, then green, and dives around the corner of the house.

Sam shifts uneasily on his feet, unsure whether to follow, then shrugs and crosses his arms, the tail of his shirt coming up with the sweaty-tack of his hand against it.

"Oh...dear," Jeannie says. "A woman's work is never done, I see." She shakes her head and goes into the house, deliberate steady steps of a woman on a mission with no idea she's supposed to be tottering and old.

It takes Dean a few minutes to slink back out, longer than it should considering he couldn't have had much in his stomach to begin with after feeding it all to the dog. When he does, he's all square-shouldered and bow-legged swagger cocky, swipes a lime and a Corona, and spits into the shrubbery. It's the worst cover up Sam's ever seen. Dean's either slipping in his old age, or Sam's somehow missed the more convincing stages of deception.

"Funny how that works," Dean says sheepishly, sweaty palms over the thighs of his jeans. "Y'know, when you see someone..." he makes upchucking motions with his hands, "...and then, well..." He's leaning forward just enough for Sam to take a step away. It's a load of crap and Sam knows it. Dean sees more disgusting things than dog puke on a pretty regular basis and stops for cheeseburgers on the way home. And pie.

He might be still be a little sun weary and bone tired, groggy from days of restless sleep, but he doesn't miss the tiny wince Dean makes when he has to straighten up again. Sam knows he's been a little busy trying not to buckle under the weight of the world and this black cloud of doom pressing down--black cloud with yellow eyes that breathe fire. But that flinch? That's new. He knows it is. He'd have noticed that.

Wouldn't he?

"You all right, man?" Sam says, casual with half a laugh in his voice that doesn't even hint at the fact that his arm almost reaches out on its own to pat Dean on the shoulder. Nothing shuts his brother down like genuine concern.

"Sure." Dean does a passable job of looking bewildered. Too bad Sam's already onto him. "Fine."

"Yeah, fine," Sam snips. It's the code-word for anything _but_ fine. Somehow Dean hasn't figured that out yet. Lucky for him, Sam speaks fluent Dean Latin. Sam does a rapid recall of the day 'til now, wonders if he's missed anything else. He tries to remember. Any unusual groans? Pops? Staggering? Yes. Yes. And yes. None of them from Dean, though. Friggin' hay fever.

At least, none as far as Sam remembers, which is about as far back as Dean taking the shovel from him and doing Sam's share of the trap-digging because Sam was wheezing like an old man and bitching about sleeping in the barn for the umpteenth time that day.

Well, shit. Of course Dean's sore. He did the work of two grown men today, and blew up a chupacabra to boot. Sam owes him some credit. And a week off.

Dean scowls, no doubt thinking he hides it well, with his perfectly ducked gaze and quick reach for the glass of tea he left on the table, but it's a bona fide scowl. Sam's treading water at the edge of the Dean Winchester whirlpool of sucking denial and self-sacrifice. That buoy circling slightly faster and bearing down at increasing velocity? That's pride. Sam takes a backstroke and lets it go by.

"Uh, Cappy, Sir," Sam stammers, "I think another week in the barn might not be a bad idea. I mean, if the offer still stands, considering my brother just tried to poison your dog."

Cappy laughs. "Boy, you can't poison that dog. I've seen him suck down day old road kill, and..." He darts a glance in Dean's direction and breaks off the description, then shrugs at Jethro. "See, he's just rearranging it."

Sure enough, the dog's lapping up the mess he just made, and Dean's halfway around the corner of the house again before Jeannie comes out with some aspirin and a glass of water. She pats Sam on the shoulder and says, "Why don't you boys come stay in the guest room. We usually keep it just for family, but I think we can trust you not to steal the china." She does that annoying cheek pinching thing Sam's learned to tolerate and goes on to say, "Give those to Dean when he comes back. Poor boy's looked pinked ever since breakfast."

_He has?_

"Sure thing, Mrs. Cagel."

"Jeannie," she corrects and starts clearing the table.

"Jeannie," Sam agrees. "Thanks." But now he wonders if maybe the flush that's been creeping up Dean's cheeks all day is more than the sun.

Ah, well, time will tell. And they have a whole week. Another week in New Mexico. Yippee ki yay! _Land of Enchantment, my ass._

XX

The guest room is almost a no-go. There's just one queen-sized bed under that pile of heirloom quilts. That's not the problem, though. Despite all the snide comments and gay innuendo that's been directed at the two of them over the years, sleeping together is really not that big a deal. You spend enough time crammed into a sleeping bag together as kids, and you get the fuck over it. And the Cagels aren't exactly the kind of people to snicker and raise their eyebrows at the idea of two brothers piled in a bed. From the number of family pictures on the walls and above the mantle, Sam would wager to say Jeannie's feather bed would hold eight kids, four hound dogs, and a piggy they stole from the shed... and it probably has on more than one occassion.

So, it's not the bed that poses an issue. It's Dean. Dean, who's already sprawled out over the entire width of the thing, one shoe off and one shoe on, diddle, diddle, dumpling, before Sam gets out of the bathroom.

Sam's still wiping the last of the shaving cream from his face, towel covering his eyes when he comes into the room. Three prompts of, "Dean, it's open," without a snide response about using all the hot water or lighting a match, and he drops the towel, flips the light switch beside the door. "Dean?"

He's pissed for half a second. He's been crabby for over a week now, and he doesn't switch gears that fast, but he can't stay mad. Sure, Dean's taking up the whole bed. Dean is kinda everywhere at the moment, but Sam can't stay mad. Can't even work up more than a passing annoyance as he leans back against the door jamb, hand to elbow, and watches Dean sleep. It's pretty comical, actually. Looks like he was untying his second boot and just keeled sideways. The six or seven lace-shammed pillows are scattered about like he made half an attempt to sit back up and then gave in, sprawled back, and closed his eyes. Probably told himself he was just resting his eyes, only for a second.

"If you can finagle him outta those britches, I'm fixin' to do some laundry. Won't be no trouble to add y'alls." Sam starts a little at the sound of Jeannie's voice, hadn't heard her come down the hall.

"Oh, you don't have to..." he begins, more than a little embarrassed by the amount of grunge he's glaringly aware is lurking in their duffel bags. He doesn't even want to think how he'd explain the shirt he blew his nose on last week.

"Baloney!" She snaps with good-natured cuff to back of Sam's head. "Now put those muscles of yours to use and see if you can't peel him out before they cement themselves on. I'd do it myself," she says, flexing her biceps with a glint in her eye that says she's fully aware they flop the wrong direction, "but I get the feeling you two haven't had any female company in a bit. A lady's got to protect her virtue." She smirks while wrapping a stray whisp of blue-grey hair around the nearest pin curl and primping the rest with long, bony fingers capped with short, square-tipped nails. "I'll have him know I'm taken." She twirls around like a dancer, shoulders back and chin up, floats out the doorway. Turning back at the last second, she sweeps a gaze over Dean's sprawled body, bites her lip and shakes her head. "But boy, if I wasn't..."

Sam laughs at the quirk of her eyebrows as she ducks away, and slides away from the door jamb, knees, hips, lower back, shoulder blades, then head like a marionette plucked from a hook and yanked into action. He can do it without starting a tidal wave in his chest for once, the filtered indoor air already doing wonders for his hay fever, and he's breathing through both nostrils for the first time in days. It would be a much better feeling if he wasn't lowering himself to his knees with the intent of removing some slightly moldy socks.

Dean barely stirs while Sam undresses his feet. Rather than have Dean wake up with his belt undone and his zipper half down, Sam tries to wake him. He puts a hand on one crooked thigh and shakes. "Dean, dude, c'mon. Help me out here, man." Dean flinches under the touch and rolls so Sam's hand slides off but doesn't wake up. Sam half thinks he's faking, but the thought passes when he gives up and goes to work on the belt buckle. No way Dean would let Sam undo his belt if he was aware it was happening. Sam sighs, resigned to the fact he's going to have to do all the work.

"And here I thought you gave as good as you got. I don't see how you get so much action letting someone else do all the work. I feel sorry for your the next girl you pick up..."

He falters in his nervous monologue when Dean twitches. It's more of a twinge, actually, hands jumping off the bed while his belly sinks away from the prod of Sam's fingers over his stomach. Brow furrowing, Sam raises the tail of the belt, pulls it slightly tighter in order to slide it over the tongue of the buckle. He gets the same reaction, more violent this time, and there's a definite flinch around Dean's eyes.

Somehow, Sam doesn't think Dean's got sunburn on his stomach.

Fingers feeling fat and clumsy, he finishes undoing the belt buckle as gently as he can, pops the button and lowers the zipper. The awkwardness of knowing it's his brother's pants he's undoing is far outweighed by the concern that's started to clench inside his own stomach. With the jeans open, he can push the shirt tails up over Dean's abdomen. He watches, worry clawing its way up his spine as the slightest touch of his finger over the pale, definitely NOT sunburned skin, elicits a quiver of muscle as each fiber jerks away from the contact. Before he can get the shirt unbuttoned, Dean makes a noise in his throat, half groan and half whimper. It turns into a tight cough that has Dean curling in on himself, arms folding over his stomach as his legs draw up.

Sam pauses right there, his thumbs hooked in the waistband of Dean's jeans. He's watching the way the soft spot just under his brother's sternum caves in a little with every breath in like it's trying to hide from the pressure of even the light in the room. It flutters up and down ahead of every exhale, then... stops. His heart does a somersault in his chest as his eyes dart up to Dean's face, and then backflips back again when he finds Dean looking back at him through half-lidded, bleary eyes.

"You see something you like?" Dean asks, trying and failing to cock an eyebrow without closing the eye instead.

Sam can't jerk his hands free of the jeans without tugging them down a few inches lower on Dean's hips. Dean wears his jeans tighter than Sam, and his underwear start to come down along with the pants. He might look tired and sore, but Dean's grip is iron on Sam's wrist when he pries the invading fingers away from his exposed hip bones.

Blushing and a little out of sorts with himself in general, Sam gives a half-hearted, "Don't flatter yourself," then backs away. For some reason, what a few seconds ago was just the innocent removal of dirty laundry is suddenly intrusive and feels like spying. Not because he might accidentally see Dean without his clothes, but because he might have just seen Dean naked in a whole other way. Asleep. Unaware. Unprotected.

Without walls.

It feels wrong, scares him in a way nothing supernatural ever could. Sam stoops to pick up the discarded socks and shoes, feels the heat of embarrassment creep up the back of his neck.

"Jeannie offered to do the laundry. I think those pants are about to walk off on their own."

Dean clears his throat, rolls up to totter precariously on the edge of the bed. "Really? Cuz it kinda felt like your fingers doing the walking from my end of things. You could've woke me up. I'm not a baby." He tries to stand enough to shimmy the jeans down past his hips, sways precariously and falls back with a grunt.

"Jerk," Sam says. From his position on the floor it's one smooth movement to grasp the pant legs and pull them the rest of the way off.

"What I'm a jerk for not wanting to be molested in my sleep?" He sits up, still leaning.

"Can we drop the molestation charges for a second? It's getting old, kinda like your whole, 'I'm fine' routine." He holds his palm out, straight-armed and determined, but looks away as he says, "Shirt."

Dean grunts and finishes undressing, wads the button-down into his hand. Sam bites back whatever's warring with his otherwise gentle nature and sighs. "You're sick. I don't know why you can't just say something instead of waiting until you're passing out in awkward positions on other people's furniture." He chances a sideways glance up at Dean's face, and this time Dean looks away.

With a whoop of breath that's most likely intended to back a bellow of 'I am Dean Winchester, hear me roar,' Dean starts to argue, but the breath betrays him and kicks him in the stomach, instead. Still kneeling on the floor, Sam can't miss the moment when the yell ricochets off something in Dean's chest, making his ribcage jerk and lock down. What comes out is a cough-wheeze so weak Dean dismisses it by clearing his throat. He glares back at Sam for too long, obviously trying to decide whether he should try that again or change his tactic and spare his pride. He goes with the latter, swallowing hard before saying, "I'm not sick. Just tired." When he can't hide the wince as he scoots himself back into the nest of pillows, he adds, "And sore..." another wince, "from doing all YOUR digging, allergy boy."

He manages to keep his voice even, but Sam notices the convulsing of his throat and the tiny roll of his belly that belies dissention in the ranks. Mind over matter only works for so long before the matter rebels with fingers waggling in ears and razzberry-o-doom on its tongue. Dean's sick. Sam knows it. Dean knows it. Dean's body knows it. His upstairs brain is just down for the count.

Sam's been here before. Often.

"Fine." Rising from the floor with the armload of laundry, he jerks back the bedclothes with one arm, says, "Don't hog the whole bed. I'll take this out to Jeannie and come back. You want me to bring you anything? Water? Aspirin? Pepto B..."

"Roll of duct tape for your mouth and a rubber sock so I won't get my foot dirty when I kick your ass..."

The glare that's supposed to accompany the snark has the unfortunate consequence of bringing Dean's eyelashes into close proximity. In his condition, they're like magnets, and he falls asleep mid-sentence.

Sam smirks, a little amused. Looking down at the armload of laundry and back at Dean, he raises his eyebrows, squares his shoulders and walks away. Dean's sick all right. He's also sleeping in dirty underwear. Sam's so not going _there_. Ever.

XX

When he comes back later, juggling two juice bottles, three different kinds of pain reliever/fever reducer, a heating pad, muscle rub, and a patridge in a pear tree, Dean has, of course, completely ignored his request not to hog the whole bed. He's scattered hither and yon, face down with each arm on a pillow and his head wedged between in a dry land version of dead man's float. Sam stares, donning a facade of mock disbelief just to camouflage the 'awww' he feels creeping into his cheeks. No way does he find his brother's sleeping antics cute, not even with his boxer briefs slid down to half-moon position. He also doesn't want his mind to jump automatically to the crack-drama of _Twin Peaks_. But you don't always get what you want. What Sam really needs about then is some whipped cream and a cherry... whoops... and an extra arm, because he's carrying way too much to be fixated on Dean's future career as a plumber. He tightens his grip on his... God, he did not just think to call it his booty... ahoy, Pirate Sam... tightens his grip on... all the junk... er, stuff... he's carrying and looks around frantically for a place to set it down.

"Now that is a sight for sore eyes." This time, Sam drops both the Tylenol and the Advil as Jeannie comes in behind him. He blushes red and wonders if there's any way he can pull the covers up over Dean without acknowledging that he knows exactly what sight she's referring to.

"Makes me wanna find the talc," she says wistfully. "Nothing brings out the mother hen in me like a couple of nice, round cheeks."

Defenseless, Sam can do nothing but flinch as she punctuates the last word by squeezing his face for the dozenth time that night. She seems unsympathetic to his plight and adds a bottle of NyQuil to his load.

"We're out of the good whiskey," she snickers. "Best I could do in a pinch." Then, she looks over at Dean again. "It don't look like he's gonna turn over any time soon." She sighs. "My loss, I suppose."

Sam's arms, burning by now, go numb, probably due to all the blood in his body rushing to his cheeks. Women leer at his brother all the time. But this is just dirtywrongbad. The supplies all fall to the hardwood floor like candy out of a pinata. Without thinking, Sam bends to pick them up.

"Good genes, I see."

He jerks around, meets her dancing eyes at approximately the location where his ass has just been. It's obvious she's teasing, just to make him blush, but women her age should not be that good at... innuendo. They just shouldn't.

She pats his shoulder. "I'll pull out the sofa bed for you, dear. You'll sleep better in the living room."

He shrugs and nods. "Okay, sure." It sounds logical enough, simple.

But since when is anything in Winchester Wonderland ever simple?

TBC

A/N: Whattaya know? I don't have anything to add. Pish. Posh. No cliffie. Don't make me regret it.


	2. Chapter 2

Sorry for the technical difficulties. *I are much em-bare-ASS-ed* Thanks. Forgot to mention the gibberish they speak is from the poem "Jabberwocky" by Lewis Carroll out of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

**Complete Warnings and Disclaimer at Chapter One.**

**A/N:** Okay, so I already had this chapter ready to go when I posted the first one. I knew there was a lot of setup in the first one and didn't want y'all to be overwhelmed. Don't expect updates this quick in the future. I haven't even sent the next part to beta yet. Expect it sometime next week before I head to Chicago. And yes, Nana56, we'll see you there.

**A/N2**: I've tried and tried to break my author notes habit, but I can't. I love author notes. Get used to it. The mystery illness in this story isn't really so mysterious. The title is a good hint. I find it harder and harder to do things to the boys that hasn't already been done. I mean, I've done cancer, asthma, crucifixion, gunshot, blah, blah, blah, and let's not forget acid rain. So, if someone has done this, no toes were stepped on in the process of me going here, I hope.

I wanted to say that I realized after I posted that my Sam called Dean "Dick," in the last chapter. I wrote most of this back in September before the 4th season even premiered. It's just something brothers would say to each other and is in no way intended to stir up stuff from the recent episode.

And for the wonderful reviewer who asked for more Sick!Dean and Clueless!Sam, I actually have started another fic with just that combination, but it's set in Season 4, and I've discovered that I'd rather grope maggoty meat in the dark than try to write Season 4 Sam and Dean. Those boys are all kinds of MESSED UP! Pets them. But I do still loves them. And I'mma marry that hot new character, and he and Dean and me are moving into my new polygamist compound together.

Again, Happy birthday to **Heather03nmg** and thanks to **Chemm80 **for beta. Without **Chemm80** my medical knowledge would all come from working nights and watching Discovery Health Channel at 3 a.m.

**ETA:** Oh, and Sam's Spanish is supposed to be bad. LOL. Tracer, that's for you.

**Sin Nombre**

It's funny how things slide into perspective, just out of the blue. Or, in this case, more out of the beige. That's the color of the stucco on the Cagel's vaulted ceiling, except in the sweeping trapezoids of moonlight streaming in through the alcove windows. The first night in weeks not sleeping under the tin barn roof with bats and owls swooping overhead, he should probably be doing some actual sleeping, but he he's not. He's watching the ceiling fan, lulled by the whup, whup, whup, of the giant blades that look like wicker or bamboo, and thinking about sofa beds.

Of all the beds and makeshift holes in the wall he's crammed himself into over the years, the sofa bed is the least familiar. Sam's pretty sure he'd remember ever trying to sleep with the knobs of his backbone warring against a steel brace all night. And that's the thing. He doesn't remember. Sofa beds are for relatives and friends, for houses full to the rafters with people comfortable enough to trip over each other in the middle of the night without a second thought. They're the part of full lives and homes that say, "Don't worry. This is home. There's always room for one more."

Sam doesn't remember ever being that familiar with anyone besides Pastor Jim and Bobby, never that cozy with anyone but Dean, and Jess never seemed that impermanent 'til she was. His life's always been never enough, giant empty guest rooms with no one to fill them, but so closely wound around what's his, he can't hear the echo.

Now, he hears the echo. Alone, with a big old bed to himself between family photos and heirloom furniture is no place Sam's ever been. He can't sleep. It feels a whole lot like his first night in his dorm room at Stanford when he'd opened his eyes to discover the comedian who used to live in that room had painted REDRUM on the ceiling in glow-in-the-dark paint.

The plaque on the wall says, 'No place like home,' but this feels more like Oz.

Halfway through the sleepless night, and things are crystal clear for the first time since Jess. Some things about normal are best left foreign. Like fucking sofa beds.

With an indignant grunt, he tosses the sheets aside and lets the breeze from the ceiling fan dry away enough of the night sweat so he can peel himself up without taking the linens and the paper thin mattress with him. He lifts his knees to his chest and rolls his legs over the edge, drops his feet to the floor. Then, he sits, just sits, and sits some more, his body heavy, head dense with something Superman couldn't see through, because seriously, it's like five in the morning. What's he gonna do? He's not familiar enough with the Cagels to just raid the refrigerator, though now that he thinks about it, even the kidwich doesn't sound terrible.

Okay, yeah, it does. Baby goat on a spit. That'll give him nightmares, he's sure. Nightmares of the surreal and innocent variety he hasn't had... well, like he hasn't had since he was seven. He laughs a little to himself and scrubs a hand over his face, because that's really what this is about. About his little boy lost complex, and the only sure fire therapy he knows. When he couldn't sleep as a kid, there was usually a bad dream to blame, a dream about clowns, or evil midgets, evil clown midgets, or the hunter who shot Bambi's mom. Nothing at all like the dreams he has now, where Death's always the villain and people he loves give Oscar-worthy performances in supporting roles. Those dreams were simpler and always had a sure remedy.

He looks down at his long legs, bare feet at the bottom with toes he wiggles against the hardwood like he's seeing them for the first time. In a way he is. He half-expects to look down and see the ghosts of his trusty footie pajama bottoms, the trusty magic shoes that always knew the way to someplace safe and warm.

Ugh. This is pathetic. Sam is so not that five year old kid who climbed into his brother's bed every night until he was seven and stopped because he thought what he dreamt might follow him there. That's not what this is about at all. He's not sitting here wondering if Dean has rolled over enough in his sleep to make room for Sam. He's not. Denial _is_ just a river in Egypt.

He's just... wondering if Dean needs anything. You know, like a drink of water or more juice. 'Cause now that he thinks of it, two bottles of Gatorade and a pitcher of filtered water isn't nearly enough. When Sam's sick, Dean buys a case.

Well, no he doesn't, but it's almost five a.m., and Sam's allowed to make up false memories if he wants to. It's a good way to distract his mind as he stands and pads across the living room toward the hall. A good way to convince himself he doesn't miss his annoying older brother who's just down the hall for Christ's sake. You could say he's lying to himself. He prefers to believe he's sleepwalking. After all, it is five a.m.

Under cover of night is a bad cliche, but he's glad it pops into his mind. He feels a little bit invisible, a little less like a stalker or some home invader old Cappy's gonna greet with a shotgun when he reaches the end of the hall. He's double O Sammy in super stealth mode, low center of gravity and light on his toes, a self-contained haunting, a...

"Ahh!" …a screaming girl.

It comes from behind the door the second he touches the knob, something cold and wet, and latches over his wrist. The grip is iron despite the slick of moisture, and presses up and in with a sharp jolt like electricity along his flexor tendon. Before he can gasp in protest, the door's loose of his hand and clicks shut with his face pressed into the frame, his arm twisted behind his back. Somehow he's inside the room, still whirling with vertigo.

"You trying to wake the whole house?" Dean's breath rasps on the back of Sam's neck.

_Dean's_ breath. Thank God. It soothes over the tension in his neck and chest like a massive dose of Icy Hot. Ragged with relief, Sam brings his other arm up, rests his forehead against it and just breathes until the pins and needles in his scalp recede. "You scared the shit out of me," he gasps, not enough air left in his lungs to put any accusation into it.

"'T's what you get for sneaking around in the dark," Dean grunts, releasing his hold on Sam's arm. "There are old people right down the hall, you know. You could give someone a coronary with all that... lurking."

And here Sam was just thinking he might get himself shot. He turns around, rubbing at his wrist gingerly, a biting reply forming on his tongue. Instead, his lip's the only thing that gets bitten. That's the only way he can keep himself from laughing out loud when gets a look at his brother, dressed in black boxer briefs, boots with no socks, and... Sam really, really hopes that's not the shirt he blew his nose in. Of course, it has to be, since that's the only thing he didn't give Jeannie to wash. Dean must've missed the crustiness in the dark. The laugh dies in his throat when he realizes Dean's also wearing his jacket.

"Dude, you're not going outside like that?" Sam asks.

Dean cocks his head, chin jutting with accusation. "Doesn't look like I have much choice. The dirty laundry fairy came and took every stitch of clothing I own. Way to think ahead, SAM." The last word carries a stab of accusation in the emphasis.

"W..we..." Oh yeah, he's waffling. Dean's right. Not his most shining bit of foresight. But it's not like he expected Dean to be coming out of his coma in the middle of the night. Speaking of which, Dean may have got the jump on him a second ago, but he doesn't look all that steady on his pins at the moment. The moonlight streaming in through the window reflects off the sheen of Dean's forehead and cheeks, washes out the color Sam knows blushes over his cheeks under the cast of cold light. And either the wall is swaying back and forth or Dean is. Sam's got a dent in his forehead that says the wall's pretty sturdy. "You're sick. You're supposed to be in bed, not staggering around outside in the middle of the night."

"I'm fi..." Dean obviously knows it's in his best interest not to use the f-word. He coughs into his hand and scrubs the back of his neck while choosing his words. "I'm not sick. Just tired. And unless I misunderstood, we're here to make sure there aren't any more goat suckers where the last one came from."

"So, what? You're going out patrolling the barnyard in your underwear?"

Dean looks down at himself. He had to have known how ridiculous the whole thing looked before Sam pointed it out, but now his whole body seems to shrug. Sam wonders how much of a temperature he's really running. "Okay, it's a little crazy, I know," Dean admits. "But I got up to take a leak, and I saw something outside. I guess I just acted on instinct."

"Funny," Sam teases, "last I heard it was human instinct to at least reach for an extra layer of fig leaves before going out in public."

Dean looks downright mopey about the whole situation. Only Sam Winchester's big brother would be mopey about not being able to scout the perimeter in the middle of the night. He shrugs and pulls his jacket closed like it will magically turn into a t-shirt and jeans if he just puts the right whammy on it.

Sam takes pity, sags with resignation. "You're sure you saw something?"

"No, I'm not sure," Dean snaps. "If I was sure, I'd have shot first and gotten dressed on my way to burn the corpse."

Sam's not too keen on the idea of checking out the barnyard, but he's less keen on Dean going out in his skivvies. "Well, don't go off half..." He gestures wildly at Dean's general disarray, "...half _everything. _I think the laundry's done. We'll get dressed, and I'll go with you. What was it you saw, anyway?"

Dean shrugs. "Not sure. Could've just been Tull. Hard to say with the way shadows stretch, but it looked bigger, and I could swear I saw red eyes."

He doesn't want to say it's possible Dean's sicker than he thinks and this could all just be fever dreams of some sort. Doesn't matter, anyway, Dean won't rest until they check it out, and Sam owes it to the Cagels not to dismiss the possibility. "So, you think there's at least one more, then?" As if his doubt's a dare whispered into the night, an eerie howl rises on the wind.

Dean's eyes snap to the window then dip slowly back to Sam. "At least."

Another howl joins the first, and they don't need the pale moonlight to share a knowing glance across the darkness. Hunters don't get sick days.

XX

Family business, destiny, duty, vocation... whatever you call it, the whole gearing up at the drop of a hat and stumbling around at night deal sucks. Postmen have nothing on Winchesters. Neither rain, nor sleet, nor gloom of night, hellfire, imminent death, nor blood loss either... Yeah, they've been in worse situations, adrenaline fuelled and just hanging on, but those things don't just happen. A lot of things conspire against them all at once, pile on until there's no escaping the dogpile of trouble and holy shit.

Thing is, all the top conspirators are breathing down the back of Sam's neck right now, the biggest one being Dean. Sure, sometimes just disorientation is enough, dropping into a situation with no time to size things up. Bad intel's gotten them more than a few times, since good first hand witness statements are hard to get from people in the early stages of post traumatic stress and the late stages of denial. But Sam can count on one hand the number of times they've gotten in dire straits when one of them hasn't been off his game, either physically or mentally.

Sam and Dean? They're about as co-dependent as two people can get. There's no point denying it. Their track record says it all. They trust. They rely. They believe, but only in each other and probably way too much. Throw something in the works like injury or illness, and what you have is a giant distraction.

Sam can't even deny his lack of focus. He can't blame it on the dark, either. The moon illuminates everything between the barn and the chicken coop well enough to make out the darting movement of lizards along the walls. But right beside him, under cover of merging shadows from the house and the garage, it's dark as pitch. Of course, that's where Dean is, so that's where Sam's other four senses keep poking around.

And the more they stay silent, straining for a lock on anything out of the ordinary, the less Sam hears the muted sounds of night and the more he hones in, not on the potential beast in the darkness, but on Dean's breathing. It's... stunted. A little half-hitch ties off each breath before it's quite finished, like when Sam and Dean had bunk beds and Sam hit his head on the ceiling every morning as he tried to get up. There's no real cough, as of yet, but in the dark, Sam can hear the effort Dean's making to keep it in his belly, the little swallow at the end of each inhale that precedes the exhale. The cough doesn't like being quashed and makes a sharp, wet whistle at the high and low of each breath.

For all his bluff and bluster, Dean sounds like shit, and if goat sucker hearing is at least as good as a dog's, Sam's pretty sure Dean sounds like dinner. Hell, if there's a chupacabra out there and it has anything like heat vision, it's probably kicking back with a beer and watching dinner cook.

"Dean, go back to bed. I got this."

"The hell you do." Talking is a mistake, apparently scratching over his throat enough to loose the cough he's been suppressing. Trying to stay quiet, Dean presses his fist to his mouth while his chest hitches, cheeks blowing out to vent the pressure.

"You sound like bait."

"All the better to lure him out." Dean coughs again, dry and crackly. It makes Sam swallow sympathetically.

"And then, what? You're gonna breathe on him? Bring him down with the common cold?"

A wet wheeze, and a swallow. "Last I checked, there was still no cure. Pretty vicious little bug if you ask me. He should be afraid." In his best horror flick voice, "Be very afraid." And more half-silent dry coughing. This is getting ridiculous. Sam's ninety-percent positive that if anything was ever out here, it's gone now, or you know, setting the table for dinner.

Sam opens his mouth with a comeback then snaps it shut again as the chicken coop emits one loud, collective cluck of surprise. Crouching lower against the side of the garage, Sam's hand falls on the reassuring cold of the Glock tucked in his waistband. "I think we have a lock."

"Dude, I'm not playing Goose to your Mav," Dean grumbles at Sam's back. Can you see anything or can't you?"

"What exactly am I supposed to see, Dean? This isn't a Foghorn Leghorn cartoon. I don't think the coop's gonna shake on its foundation and shoot feathers out the windows."

"Wow, somebody's pissy when he doesn't get his nappy time," Dean accuses. "I meant, do you see any glowing, red eyes?"

"Glowing red eyes? I hate to say it, but we've been here almost two weeks and haven't seen that before. Are you sure you didn't just imagine that? You're kinda feverish. Might have been a hallucination." The time for pulling punches ended when Dean's body started throwing punches of its own.

"Well, maybe only the males or the alphas have the glowy shit happening," Dean explains. Then with agitation, "Wait, you think I'm leading us on a wild goose chase, and you just bring this up now?"

"And if I'd said so in the house you wouldn't have still dragged us out here to check?"

"You say that like I force you against your will or something. This from the dude who had his hands in MY pants while I was unconscious."

"Let's not start that again. Look, I'm sorry I brought it up. Let's just get this ov..."

"No. No, I'm sorry. I'm sorry if I actually care about making sure these nice people don't have any goat sucking monsters in their barnyard, Sam. I'm sorry they might even be making it worth our while by paying us for once. In fact, let me apologize on their behalf for being so fucking needy and loose with their hard-earned money."

Dean Winchester has a pretty damned long fuse on his temper. Probably comes from years of never winning an argument with Sam in one corner and Dad in the other. When he's sick, that fuse is exponentially shorter. All the world needs is two pissy Winchesters at the same time. Sam sighs.

"It's not about that, Dean, and you know it. It's just... okay, I'm the one who's sorry. I shouldn't have let you talk me into this. I'm off my game. I'll admit it. And I'm the one who's sorry if I care more that a few hours ago you were too sick to carry on a conversation without passing out but now you're supposedly well enough to hunt. I call BS and say we wait 'til morning. This will be a lot easier in the light of day when I can actually see if you're about to keel over on me."

"I'm not about to keel over on you. It's just a cold." He forgets and exhales too far, coughs. "Or, maybe the flu," he admits. "We've hunted in worse shape before."

"Only because we had to. We don't have to do this now."

Just then, another ruckus rises inside the chicken house.

"Aww, c'mon Sammy, think of the chickens."

Sam snickers and shakes his head. "Well, all right, but only because I still feel guilty about the baby goat." His shoulders slump, resigned, and he draws in a breath. "For the chickens, then. And I'm going in first."

He can hear Dean preparing to protest the last stipulation, when a light comes on inside the chicken coop.

Last they checked, goat suckers preferred the dark. Sam senses Dean's head tip to the side in a puppy dog expression of "Huh?" He's not psychic, not like that. He just knows because his own head has gone left, taken an eyebrow with it, and Dean's is bound to have gone right. That's just the way they roll.

They both freeze. Whatever turned on the light is still too close to the bulb to be anything other than a hole in the room with white at the edges. As it moves away, it takes shape and gets, small. Really small, like Alice in Wonderland in all her Eat Me, Drink Me drama.

Curiouser and curiouser.

They're both so rapt in their attention that they jump when the monster reveals itself, flinching internally, then laugh, because...duuuude. Through the window, Olga's face appears, her head intermittently dropping in and out of sight as she gathers eggs for that morning's breakfast. Juevos con Papas. Yum. The growl of Sam's stomach is almost as embarrassing as the flinch they'll both deny later.

This time, Dean snorts. "All right. You go first, cowboy. Protect me from the big bad, housekeeper."

"She's a domestic engineer. Jerk."

"Bitch."

The laugh is weak, all their waning nocturnal energy sucked up in the effort of rising from the crouch they must've been holding for way longer than they thought. If there was a chupacabra about, it's most likely gone to ground now that the light's on. Sam enjoys a stretch, avoids putting his hand to the kink in his back, even though it would feel sooo good. He's really not in the mood for a granny joke. It's a good thing his hands are free, because they're the only things that save his forehead from the second meeting with a hard surface that night when he's shoved from behind.

"Hey!" he gasps into the tiny space between his lips and the side of the garage. "What the...?"

"Sorry." It sounds sincere, if weak, and is followed by a strange panting sigh. Sam straightens, then spins around as a weight tugs down on his shoulders and grows heavier.

"Whoa..." He catches Dean under the armpits, Dean's hand still fisted in the back of his jacket as he tries and fails to stand on his own. "Hey..." There's a scary half-second where Dean's head tilts back before he starts and jerks beneath Sam's fingers. Braced against the wall, Dean stacks himself together, finding and locking each major joint in progression from the ground up.

"Hey," Sam repeats, since he's pretty sure Dean didn't hear him the first time.

"Hey, yourself, beautiful..." Dean's voice is smut beneath eyelids drooped to less than half mast.

"What? Ugh!" Sam sets him more firmly against the wall with a shove and steps back like he's just realized he's put his hands in, well, a whole other kind of dogpile. "Prick!"

"Oh, c'mon, baby. Hold me while I fall," Dean leers, and it would be a lot more convincing if he didn't stay leaning hard against the wall after Sam lets go. Sam moves to the side and the trailing light from the chicken coop window pins Dean down, the 'x' of crossed-muttons in the center of his chest. Way more of that light reflects back off the pasty sheen on Dean's neck and forehead than is okay in any book. If his eyes are bright, it's not from laughter.

The last of Sam's barely formed annoyance melts. Dean can glue on a cocky grin, hold himself upright when he feels like falling over, and just plain BS his way around the obvious in just about any situation, but not this one. _Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice..._ Sam's nobody's fool. Especially not Dean's.

Looking at him, Sam has the strangest urge to pick Dean up by the scruff of the neck and carry him back to his den. He compromises, as brothers do, hand high in the air and long slow descent like a pat on the back that settles too firmly, sticks too tightly, requires too much muscle to be anything other than a helping hand.

"You look thrashed, man," he laughs. "Are you even hearing English anymore or am I speaking jabberwocky?"

"Dunno," Dean mumbles swaying into the brace of Sam's arm. "Too busy resting by the Tumtum tree."

"I am not a tree."

"But you have a tumtum." Soft laugh that wheezes at the end.

"And it's hungry. So let's get your frumious Bandersnatch to bed, so I can gimble in the wabe and get my tumtum some breakfast."

"Callooh, Callay!" Dean raises a fist in the air with a snicker. "You said snatch."

"You're a perv."

Behind them, a shadow swallows the light from the chicken coop, and before the dark settles, Olga screams, high and short, followed by silence.

Adrenaline accomplishes what sheer will power could not, and both brothers straighten to full height, weapons drawn and at the ready in the span of one quickened heartbeat. Then it's hard soles in dirt, panting between thuds of boiling blood. The chicken house hadn't seemed that far away, but there's time in the silence for Sam to get his long legs pistoned up to full sprint velocity and start to drag from the exertion by the time he hits the door.

It might not be Foghorn Leghorn's house, but it feels like it shakes off its foundation, and feathers do fly when the doors fly open simultaneously, Sam through the front and Dean through the back. They pause on the threshold, both breathing hard and brandishing their guns, eyes sweeping across the floor. In the corner, light weakly frames a circle of darkness that sways with the force of their intrusion on the rickety frame house. A hat. A familiar hat.

Sam's eyes drop to the floor, and then, whooops!, away quickly again.

Armando works fast. From what Sam can see, he's already to second base. The hand sliding down Olga's belly is rounding third.

"Sooo, sorry," Sam pants, both arms raised in surrender to the open doorway. "We heard something..." He scrambles to explain and get the hell out in as few words as possible. "Didn't mean to, uh, interrupt, any," swallow, "anything. And really, really not trying to be all, you know, voyeuristic and sneaky, and..."

Mumbled Spanish and laughter remind him that Olga and Armando probably don't even understand what he's saying. "Ugh." Oh, yeah, he's downright eloquent.

"As you were...uh, I mean, Vamos." He points toward the door. "Dean y yo. We vamos, uh, ahora, si?" Without looking back at risk of getting more of a peep show than he's had already, he says, "We were just going, right Dean?"

Silence.

"Dean?"

Instead of the snarky comment about sex in the barnyard that Sam's expecting in response, he gets a grunt of alarm from Armando, and Olga squeals as the floor shakes with a hollow thump. Sam whirls, one hand shielded against the side of his face, "Dean...oh, shit!" He lunges forward as he sees Dean's silhouette already in a kneeling position on the floor and tilting in super slow motion. Sliding on his knees through the straw and oblivious of the splintering floor stabbing through his jeans, Sam reaches his brother just in time to keep his face from hitting the ground, then nearly folds under the dead weight.

Fingers tight in the folds of Dean's jacket, Sam rolls him slowly over, Dean's head following at slower pace than the rest of his body on a lax neck. "Dean!"

But Dean doesn't answer.

TBC

**Final A/N:** Wow, y'all overwhelmed me with your response. Back in the day when I posted here on a regular basis, we only got alerts for new chapters and reviews, not for every favorite, alert, and C2 as well. You've effectively made a mess of my inbox. Okay, well, it was already a mess because I haven't emptied it out since I posted my bigbang story, but I just wanna say, Yay! Clutter makes me happy. I haven't had a chance to reply to everyone yet. But you are made of awesomesauce. nomnonnom Moar PLZ?


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: **Full disclaimer and notes at Chapter One. Okay, firstly, there was a surge of hits on this and Vestiges a couple of days ago. Whoever's responsible for that? Thank you. Word of mouth is a fic writer's best P.R. *giant smishes*

**A/N: **According to my LJ notifications, Heather's birthday is tomorrow, so you all need to spam her inbox. She deserves it for being awesomesauce with a side of chocolate syrup. Nomnomnom.

Here's the next chapter. They'll be shorter from here on out. Now that the setup is out of the way (whew!), the pace is faster, so hopefully there's still plenty of yumminess in every chapter. I just only have time for so much editing if I want to still have time for writing, and I don't want to stress my beta out by sending her huge files every week. This is for the best. Best quality with the least amount of lag time, and I can keep updating all my WIPs in timely fashion. Thanks y'all for understanding.

And thanks for all the nice words welcoming me back to the site. I'm sorry I haven't had a chance to reply to all the comments yet. I'm kinda scrambling last minute to get chapters up and all my packing/shopping done before I leave for Chicago on Friday. Anyone else who's going to be there, I'll be in H18, you know, when I'm not somewhere else. LOL.

Thanks to **chemm80 **for beta. She assures me the medical stuff is pretty sound, even if the delivery is questionable. It all counts in horseshoes and fanfic. BWahahahahahaha!

**Sin Nombre**

**Chapter Three**

It would be easier if Dean was unconscious, just passed out and lolling around in Sam's grasp, not awake enough to tell Sam to keep his grubby paws to himself, or imply it with his eyes. But Winchesters don't do anything the easy way, and Dean's not unconscious. His eyes are wide open, giant empty pie plates polished clean and shining too bright. From the fluttering of the paper thin line of his eyelids at the edges, it's almost like his eyes are rolling in their sockets. He's searching, frantically, for something or someone, but there's so much white around the irises, the pupils so wide inside, that the landmarks are all gone. It's impossible to say where he's looking.

As if Sam doesn't know.

Dean's looking at him, and not like he's just delivered a one-liner about, say, sexual exploits that involve more boobs than he has hands to hold. This is 'help me,' loud and clear. If there's any question from the blown stare, there's none in the fingers clawing into his shirt front, so hard Sam can feel Dean's ring against one of his rib bones.

"Dean, what? What the…?" He can't quite figure out what's happening until Dean's chin jerks toward the sky, his jaw wrenching open, and his back arches with the effort it takes to pull in a single rasping breath. His eyes screw shut, lines of exertion leaking with a sheen that's more than sweat.

He's... choking. Dean's choking... or something. Sam doesn't know. How can Dean be choking? He's not eating anything, wasn't chewing gum. Sam's supposed to, what? WHAT? Heimlich? Rescue breathing? CPR?

Whatever it is Sam's supposed to do, Dean needs him to do it, and fast.

Why?

Why is it Dean never asks for anything, and when he does, Sam can't give it?

If just not refusing help is Dean admitting he needs it, then this is Dean fucking begging and Sam dropping the ball. They've gone way past the barrier of stubborn pride, fast encroaching on the forbidden territory of broken and desperate. Sam should really know what to do to stop the downward spiral, but he doesn't.

On reflex, Sam's hands fly to the buttons on Dean's shirt collar and pop them open to release some of the pressure beneath the convulsing Adam's apple. The light sheen of sweat Dean's been sporting all night chills the backs of Sam's fingers, makes them slippery and numb, useless. There's something small and helpless about the way Dean shakes, the tiny little sips of air between fish-round lips and the quivering flutter of his stomach that makes the teeth on his open jacket zipper seem to squirm across his belly. Dean's never been small, not like Sam. Dean would know what to do if it was Sam lying there.

Or at least, he'd wing it. Dean's good at winging it.

And shit, Sam can do that. Why not? He had the best teacher.

Sam remembers being little and not very good at drinking from a glass, sometimes not having enough control over his muscles to swallow, _then_ breathe instead of the other way around. He knows that sickening way his throat used to lock down so nothing could go in or out, that moment in his naive little boy mind when he'd felt like he'd never be able to breathe again.

More than that, he remembers Dean behind him, talking in his ear and rubbing Sam's belly 'til it stopped being rock hard and resistant and got soft enough to move again. How Dean knew to move his hand in and out at just the right speed to smooth out the quiver and loosen everything up until a little air squeaked by, and then a little more, and finally enough for Sam to cry and scream and bury his head in Dean's t-shirt, because that's the scaredest he's ever been. How Dean never, ever told him it was nothing to cry about.

"Dean, Dean, hey, look at me." Cupping a hand under Dean's outstretched chin so his thumb cradles the jaw bone, he gives a gentle squeeze, just enough that Dean cracks open his eyes. His gaze leaks under the lashes, the wet distorting everything on both sides, but Sam meets it, trying his best to look serene though he can feel the Grand Canyon etching across his forehead. Thank God for long bangs. His other hand slides out of Dean's shirt collar and down to the soft part of his stomach just below his ribs where everything heaves and trembles. "Hey, stop fighting, okay. Just relax." Dean squeezes his eyes shut again as his ribs arch out over Sam's hand, and the tear track melts into the hair above his ear.

Desperate, Sam presses in with his hand, against the resistance, hears Dean grunt a little air out.

Wrong way but at least it's progress.

"You feel my hand? Dean, follow my hand." A flinch smears Dean's features when Sam pushes in a little farther, forces another small little wheeze out. "Now, back out. Don't think about breathing, just make your stomach follow my hand. C'mon, I know you can do this."

Lifting his hand, Sam goes slowly, feels Dean's stomach pressed against it until the quivering muscles starts to drop away, then shakes his head. "No. Farther. C'mon. Little farther." Dean tries, arching his back off the floor in the process. Sam presses in again. "Just your belly next time," he says over the pained groan that elicits. He draws back again, this time a little farther than before, and the trembling under his palm gets more cohesive, bucks against his outstretched fingers. Dean makes a surprised little gasp, then coughs. It's weak but a thousand percent more movement than he's been getting. "Good! Again!" In and out, a little farther each way, and this time with a cough on both ends. It drags on for a few more seconds before Dean drops his hands from Sam's ribs and rolls on his side, curling inward as he's wracked with ragged, dry barks that convulse his entire body.

Sam doesn't say anything, just puts a hand between Dean's shoulder blades, feels the expansion of Dean's lungs beneath it, and takes a look around. Armando and Olga haven't moved since Dean fell, and now they scramble to put their clothes back on, buttons apparently giving them fits under trembling fingers. Sam catches Armando's eye, glances at Dean and then toward the house. "Ayuda?" He's pretty sure that's not how you conjugate that verb, but he doesn't have the right neurons firing in the right parts of his brain to fix it.

Without speaking, Armando nods quickly. He stands on wobbly knees and grabs his hat from over the light fixture, beating against his thigh and rolling it between his fists before smashing it down on his head.

Sam shifts to put an arm under Dean's and help him up, but even as he still gasps to catch his breath, Dean bats the hand away. When Armando stoops down to assist, Dean refuses again, shaking his head and scooching back against the wall. He mouths the word, "Wait," but there's no strength behind it.

"Dean..."

Dean holds up a hand, concentrating on breathing and not much else.

"Dean, you're going to make it worse."

"No," Dean huffs. "I..." He puts a hand on his stomach and takes a couple shallow breaths until it starts to rise. "I got it..." another wheezing breath. "See?" The last word is punctuated by another round of barking coughs, but it takes less time to control it.

Sam crosses his arms and leans back against the wall. "Dude, we'd all be a lot more comfortable in the house."

This time Dean just glares at him.

"Lo siento," Sam shrugs at Armando. "Hermano es un burro."

Armando runs a hand up his forehead and under his hat, readjusting it with the other after smoothing his hair back. Olga finishes buttoning up her blouse and steps out from behind him, picking up her basket of eggs before she shakes the last of the straw from her skirt. She tugs at Armando's shirt sleeve and nods toward the door. He blushes and stoops to kiss her, just a peck on the cheek, his gaze questioning.

"Nah," Sam says. "Go ahead. I got this."

He doesn't have it, not really. What he has is a case of the shakes that starts thud, thud, thudding in his chest hard enough to vibrate out his fingertips. What he has is wobbly knees he's pretty sure can't help Dean into the house by himself, but if Dean's gonna be a stubborn ass about the whole thing, then Sam's not going to feel bad about letting him hit the dirt once or twice on the way in.

He also still has his gun, which finds its way into his hand automatically when Olga steps onto the wooden steps leading out of the chicken coop and screams. She leaps back inside, Armando grasping at her shoulders. Her eggs don't survive the sudden change in direction. They end up splattered on the ground outside, the dust wicking up over the sunny side from beneath.

Sam straight arms Dean before he can do anything stupid like stand on his own two feet and sidesteps in front of the secret lovers. He's about to ask what the matter is when there's a hollow thunk from beneath the floor, and a muted snarl. Bracing his back against the door jamb to keep from falling out or exposing any more of himself to the perceived threat than is necessary, he trains his gun down toward the gap where the steps don't quite meet up with the floor. He can't really see anything but reaches into his pocket for a pen light.

The beam is adjusted too wide and casts more shadow than light, the steps and the floor lit in contrast to the space where he's looking. Still, the act of turning it on startles something. Another snarl reverberates from below and dust coils out from under the steps in long tendrils that peter out into ghost fingers beneath the floor. From the angle, he's pretty sure neither adversary can see the other, but the zing of conflict thrums between them. _Back to back they faced each other, drew their swords and…_

Yeah, way to focus.

"Shit." Snarling a little himself, he pins the shaft of the flashlight under his armpit and bends his hand back to adjust the focus without lowering his gun. Then, with a flick of his wrist, he plucks the light out and aims the beam down the crevice again.

All he sees is more dust as the creature scuttles away from the light. Fast.

He takes a slow look around, the two frightened lovers and his brother, just inches of rotting plywood between them and what lies beneath.

Without a doubt, he knows this is what it feels like to have Jaws circling in the water below you.

He needs a bigger boat.

TBC

Erm, so I had grand intentions of not posting this until I was on my way out the door Friday morning so I wouldn't be stalking my inbox and wringing my hands, but I'm pretty busy between now and then, and I don't have that much self control. Shut up. It's my psychosis. I can feed it any way I want to. BWahahahahaha! Besides, we need something to do between now and next epi. *dangles cookies*


	4. Chapter 4

A/N: The hugest of warnings on this chapter as it is unbetaed. I am behind on posting due to my most awesome trip to Chicago. *waves* to Nana56, Tree, and Heather! Was awesome meeting you all. You can all go to my LJ and check out my recaps if you want to, but I wrote them on Sunday night while everyone was sleeping, and I never proofread, so they're a mess. Still, there's a pic of me and the boys. Can you say, Jensen's nipple? LOL. I feel so bad that everyone points that out. I honestly never even noticed... shut up. It's true.

Okay, so because I'm behind on rewriting, I haven't sent this to beta. Any and all suckage, which is, no doubt profuse, is my own damned fault. Let me have it with both barrels.

A/N2: There be lots more sick!Dean in this part and also some major Sam whump starting here and carrying through the rest of the story. I wish this chapter was faster moving, but alas, plot sucks my soul. To make up for not much happening, it's really long, so it covers just about everything I need to rocket through to the end.

Finally, thank you!! I was afraid to start posting here again, fairly certain everyone had a nice rootless tree they wanted me to go crawl under and die. So many old friends and shiny new faces are making me feel welcome. I really had no right to expect such graciousness. MWAH!

**Sin Nombre**

Chapter Four

Sam turns slowly, pivoting on his toes with knees bent, nearly in warrior pose as he tries to get a feeling for what's going on beneath them. Half of him expects their visitor to claw its way through the floor at any second. The other half is convinced it would've already done so if it could. Thing is, there are usually way more options than Sam has halves, and Dean's out of commission as far as Sam's concerned.

In effect, he's operating at half strength under double jeopardy. As they'd say in Canada, good on him.

He raises a booted foot slowly, then stomps down on the top step hard enough to shake the whole frame. This time, the snarl's more of a yelp and a whimper with much the same result as before, scrambling followed by a thunk into the farthest corner and the sound of claws digging into too small spaces as if to make them bigger.

Huh. That's not exactly what he would have expected.

You learn a thing or two about the supernatural when you spend our life either hunting it or being its bitch. One thing Sam's learned over the years is that supernatural entities are about action, not reaction. They're the original force, not the equal or opposite Newton described. They don't cower away and scrunch themselves into dark corners.

And yet, that's just what it seems to be doing.

He lets out a breath, surprised how stale it is, and steps down the stairs until he finds a big enough crack between the boards to shine at a different angle. And there it is. His supernatural creature of the night.

No red eyes. Just one blue one and one brown one surrounded by a mask of sable red and white. Huffing a relieved laugh, he motions for Olga and Armando to come on down. "Jethro," he explains. "Just the dog."

"Jethro?" Unconvinced, the couple inches down the steps on the other side of the coop instead, Armando's hands hovering close to Olga's waist. They peek under the floor from there, laugh nervously at each other. Armando glances back at Sam, his arm tightening around Olga, nods his head in Dean's direction with a jerk.

Sam waves them on. "Never mind. I got this," he says. And they go. Sam watches them until they're halfway across the barnyard. Olga rests her head on Armando's and ducks under one of his arms. Then, Sam feels less like a warrior and more like a voyeur. For some reason, their closeness makes the empty air at his back that much more noticeable.

For an empty space, it's awfully heavy.

"You ready to let me help you, now, or are you just planning to spend the rest of the night with the chickens? I hear that picky rooster has a thing for green eyes..." Sam stops mid-turn when he catches a glimpse of movement through the other open door. It's just a passing shadow, so quick he can't even gauge the size. It could just as well be a goat or one of the dozen or so chickens that have already literally flown the coop.

Or it could be something else.

He's far too experienced to let a shiver run up his spine at something as trivial as a passing shadow, too smart to dismiss it entirely. If nothing else, the dog under the step who won't come out and the chickens flying back into the coop faster than out lend more weight to the something else option, and the chicken coop's not exactly the best shelter.

Sam's never really had a pet, can't make a clear interpretation of the dog's antics, but he knows better than to ignore them. He learned the hard way that the whole, 'animals have a sixth sense about these things,' spiel is true.

He and Dean were probably twelve and sixteen when Dad set them out in the woods on one of his sink or swim survival missions. Back then, sort of like now, Dean was all business, and Sam was pissed about... something he can't remember. Everything seemed to piss him off back then.

It wasn't like he was deliberately ignoring his environment. It just so happened that staying angry required a lot of focus. So sure, Sam noticed the deer that came up to the water's edge and backed away without drinking, but he figured he'd just spooked it. The canteens were heavy, and no way was he trekking any farther up stream than he had to in order to fill them.

It wasn't his fault a cow from a nearby farm had slipped on some rocks, fallen in the stream and drowned, unable to get out with a broken leg. It also wasn't Sam's fault that a freak rainstorm kicked up while he was purifying the water and put out the fire before the water had actually started to boil. It _was_ Sam's fault that he told Dean it was safe to drink, too proud and stubborn to admit he hadn't completed the one task Dean had given him, that his way wasn't the only way.

The next day, when he dragged Dean out of the woods on a stretcher, he saw the cow, its carcass putrid and leaking into the stream, and he remembered the deer.

Now, Sam listens to what animals tell him. He's no Dr. Dolittle, but "Danger, Will Robinson!" is readily translatable in any language.

Dog under the coop and chickens diving for their nesting boxes... who needs a crazy robot?

"Uh, never mind. We're getting out of here whether you're ready or not." Suddenly anxious, he feels entirely too exposed with both doors standing wide open. He remedies that by shutting the far one with enough zeal to shake the coop and make the nesting chickens flap their wings restlessly.

Dean must be picking up on the same vibes as Sam, already clawing his way up the wall, breathing better except when he's coughing, which is pretty much constantly. He takes a second to steady himself, one hand pressed flat against the plywood but refuses Sam's assistance, straight-arming his brother the way Sam had done to him. Apparently, hunter's pride doesn't take sick days either. "Freaking...mother hen..." Dean says, batting Sam's hand away.

It's supposed to be a joke, but Sam's not laughing. He's not fooled by the twinkle in Dean's eyes. It's not good humor. It's fever, and Dean doesn't get to play smartass until they're back inside. "Yeah, yeah, nobody here but us chickens," Sam grumbles, knowing full well the sweat darkening Dean's t-shirt collar is from just the exertion of standing and breathing. "I can carry you, you know?"

Dean rolls his eyes, not a convincing gesture with cough tears welling between the lashes. "I can ... can bite your scrawny ass... if you try." He swallows convulsively, obviously frustrated that he can't choke back the spasms wracking his chest. Sam wishes he had some water to offer, but that's in the house, too.

The chickens give another collective squawk and rustle in their nests at the same time as Jethro snarls from under the coop. Fear spreads down Sam's spine like a glacier, standing up the short hairs as it passes. It's not so much the prospect of danger as it is being caught at a disadvantage in the face of it, and lugging his 180 pound big brother is a deal breaker all around. Some hands he won't play against Fate, and Dean's the wild ace in the blackjack deck, eleven or one, depending on the day. Today, he's definitely the one. Not the day to show their hand. Not by a long shot.

"Screw this. Let's go." He ducks under the arm Dean's got braced against the wall and drags him to the door. Half a second of what Sam is sure Dean intends to be kicking and screaming only amounts to knees and elbows shaking. Dean finally quits fighting and pulls himself together, locking everything up just in time to keep Sam from actually having to carry him. For all the bluster, Dean gets pliant after that, presumably focusing on just staying upright. Dean's burning up under Sam's arm and heavier with every step. The constant hacking can't be helping to deliver oxygen everywhere it needs to be, so Sam's a little surprised when they get out as far as the light pole in the center of the yard and Dean summons the energy to pull up short.

"Stop." He catches his breath, huffing against the pole. One arm wraps around his front at the point where his ribcage meets his stomach, his fingers clenching in the leather of his coat. He flicks his head back toward the coop without lifting his eyes, keeping them fixed on the ground like it'll disappear otherwise.

Sam keeps one hand on his gun as he scouts out the surrounding area, shaking his head. "No. No way. He'll be fine where he is." They're in probably the worst place possible, illuminated under the halo of the dusk til dawn light so everyone and everything can see them and everything outside their immediate proximity is swallowed into shadow they can't see through themselves. He only lets Dean drag him to a stop because they stand a better chance covering the remaining ground if they both catch their breath. The longer they stay still, the more he feels like a sitting duck. Or, you know, one of those black embryonic duck eggs they're always force-feeding people on Fear Factor.

"I don't like this. Let's just get you in the house. I'll come back for the dog." He wants to say the dog's probably in a better situation than they are, but he knows Dean wouldn't accept that as anything but a cop out. They signed on to watch out for the Cagel family. The whole family. Even the rodent gifting cat. It's obvious Dean thinks he's trying to cop out anyway by the way he shrugs off Sam's hand and turns back toward the chicken coop. After just a retrograde step or two, he has to bend over and put his hands on his knees to catch his breath, but he keeps inching onward, as determined as ever.

"Un burro," Sam huffs, rolling his eyes. "I'll tell you what," he concedes. "From here, it's just about as far to the barn as it is to the house. The car's behind the barn where you left it. If you've got the keys, we'll swing over and get the car, pick up Tull on the way back to the house." He pauses, waiting for Dean to answer, can't help but notice how Dean's coughing seems to be mostly in his throat like it can't get under whatever's clogging up his chest. Sam's tonsils throb in sympathy at the dry rasp and scrape of each gasp.

Dean doesn't even protest when Sam helps him upright, nods weakly with his shoulders hunched up around his ears.

"You do have the keys, right?" Sam asks, mostly to head off any other protest Dean's planning as Sam wraps an arm around his brother's waist, ducks under one arm.

"Uh," a wheeze in, "As if..." Dean hacks. Leave it to Dean to think of a way to answer the question and give his brother the brush off at the same time. Lucky for Sam, he's too heavy to brush off that easily and snags the keys from Dean's hand after Dean drags them from his pocket.

"You're such a friggin' boy scout." He says it with a snigger, but only to camouflage the tremble of worry already in his voice.

"'ts just...just how I... I roll," Dean shrugs.

This time, Sam laughs for real. "If this is rolling, then I'm sure as hell glad you weren't the one to invent the wheel." Dean steps on his feet three times and kicks him in the shin twice before they get to the car. If Sam was to ask, Dean would say it's an accident.

Sam doesn't ask. He knows better.

They're both creaking about as loudly as the hinge on the door by the time Dean slides his arm off Sam's shoulder and climbs into the car. Passenger side. At least that's one argument they dont' have to have.

"There you are, sweetheart," he says with a wink. "I promise not to tell anyone you let me feel you up on the way to the car."

"Bitch," Dean coughs, wincing with the effort. His eyes close as his head lolls back on the seat.

Sam can't bring himself to finish the exchange. Instead, he closes the door. Dean only scowls a little at being shut down. Sam should be relieved, but the silence is louder than banter. He wonders, not for the first time, how he let Dean convince him he was well enough to come out here, kicks himself for being lulled by wishful thinking.

Sam looks up once he's halfway around the front of the car, his shoulders momentarily lightened now that he's not dragging his brother across the barnyard, a little more room in his lungs for a breath of air. The sky's starting to tinge pink along the horizon, the quiet glow of a lightning globe waiting for someone to touch it. It's good for a quick perspective check, nothing more, and Dean's labored coughing kicks him back into gear with a renewed sense of urgency.

As he crosses under the barn light it flickers and goes out, leaving everything painted the same smoky red color with deep purple in shadows criss-crossed between the setting moon and the rising sun. The light goes off with a pop of the filament that makes Sam reach for his gun, the unease crawling back up his spine the way it melted under the indoor lights.

It's probably just a touchy light. Some streetlights go out if a guy walks under them with a cigarette lighter. But Sam doesn't want to be that guy shaking his flashlight and talking about dead batteries while the resident badass catches him with his pants down. There's still no sign of anything being out of the ordinary, except for the complete lack of anything ordinary going on. He hasn't seen Francisco this morning, and even the barn's eerily silent.

Maybe because it's Sunday morning? Even Sam knows that's grasping at straws. Farmers don't get the day off, and no way anyone would be sleeping in with the goats bleating for their breakfast.

Except for the part where they're not. Not one errant bleat, or baahh, or pit-pat of impatient hooves agains the side of the barn. They should be starving or eating ravenously, both of which, Sam knows, are pretty noisy states. And this, more than anything makes Sam's blood scrape through his veins like frost crystals.

The porch light over the bunkhouse isn't on, either. It's always on. Cappy's constantly yelling about it being left on, like the one light bulb turns the electric meter faster than ten miles of electric fence lining perimeter of the place. It's not on now.

That's enough to give Sam's pause an extra beat or two. He glances through the windshield into the car where Dean's still hunched over himself, eyes shut, then makes a sweep of the barnyard with his eyes, can't shake the niggling fear pinging through his veins.

Sam leans down and opens the door a crack. When he does, Dean's eyes fly open, and he straightens in his seat, as though Sam wasn't watching him through the window a second earlier. The sudden effort triggers a new bout of coughing, which Dean tries and fails to keep swallowed down, turning bright red in the process. Sam does his best to pretend he doesn't notice. "You gonna be all right here?" He asks, because telling Dean to sit tight is sure to convince Dean to do anything but, and suggesting he might not be okay on his own invokes a whole other kind of stubborn. Thank God for reverse psychology.

"Do I look... like I need a babysitter?"

He looks like he needs a doctor, and Dean might've engaged in some sexual healing, of sorts, with a babysitter or two in his time, but that's beside the point. "Good, then you don't need me hovering around. I just want to check on Francisco real quick. He's the only one we haven't accounted for, yet. I'll be right back." He closes the door before Dean realizes he's been duped and jogs up the bunkhouse steps, relieved that passenger door doesn't open behind him.

He stops short of the doorway, his boots thudding on the hollow deck. If he had spurs, he's sure it'd sound like the scene in any old western where the dude in the black hat comes stomping down the planks with a jingle and a jangle. It could be just some TV Land reflex that makes him go for his gun, but it feels like more, a hesitation in every step he can't admit to planning.

By the time he reaches the door, he's got one hand on the gun in his waistband and one crooked out to the side as if to inflate his bubble of personal space.

The door's ajar... probably because the part of the jamb that held the latch is gone, a nine inch swathe splintered into the wood. Glancing over his shoulder, he takes a quick sweep of everything behind him, including the car where he can just make out the reflection of Dean's upper body in the windshield. He backs up against the wall, still scanning the barnyard, then braces against the doorjamb.

It's just a peek. Gun through the gap in the door, then shoulder in, one quick look around, and then back out.

That's all he needs to see that a)Francisco's not there, and b) something else is. Something with red, glowing eyes... that sounds an awful lot like a fire engine.

Again, slower this time. Gun, then shoulder, neck stretching through the gap, and there it is.

A fire engine. Motion activated, it seems, because poking his head around the corner makes it spring to life when the light through the door passes over it. So help him if this whole thing is a wild goose chase because Dean happened to glance out the window while Francisco smuggled toys into the bunkhouse.

There's also a doll, a bear, a couple of rubber balls... and a tricycle. So, Sam was right in guessing Francisco had kids somewhere. Wherever they are, they're in for a hell of a birthday.

Unless the shattered door jamb is any indicator. Either Francisco and Armando are the world's worst bunkhouse tenants, or they've had company of the uninvited variety. Suddenly the dark behind him is darker, heavier, more foreboding than it was before he checked inside.

With Francisco officially missing in action, and Dean safely tucked away in the car, getting back to the house moves a little farther down the priority list. He couldn't live with himself, and Dean would kick his ass, if he suspected Francisco was in trouble and didn't at least try to look for him. He pulls the door of the bunkhouse shut, watches it swing back inward a few inches on sprung hinges before moving away, searching for further clues on what was here and where it went.

He doesn't have to check far. There's a gash in the corner of the bunkhouse wall, five huge gouges deep enough to hide a roll of quarters inside. He runs his fingers over it slowly, careful of the splintered shards stabbing through his skin. That didn't come from the glowing red eyes of a toy fire engine. He looks down. And neither did the trail of what looks like blood leading away and around the opposite side of the building.

He's starting to wonder why he even bothers putting his gun away anymore as he draws it out yet again, and slips along the planks. The trail nearly disappears, at least thins out to one or two drops every couple of yards or so. He imagines Francisco rounding the corner, finding his path blocked by whatever made the gash in the wall (and probably him) and then taking off at a run for the nearest shelter. Sam only has to look up from the dirt to know where that is. He does a quick 360 and sprints across the yard to the pump house.

The door on the tiny shed is in worse shape than the wall of the bunkhouse, obviously having withstood more than one swipe, and it's hanging open, thudding against the side in the nearly nonexistent breeze. Sam spies a thicker cluster of blood spots just outside the doorjamb and swallows, wiping at his mouth with the back of his sleeve. He doesn't have to walk around back to know there's no other door.

Francisco's inside the pump house, all right-- as far in as he could possibly get. The space he's crammed into when Sam finds him barely looks big enough for a man half his size. He probably realized that himself about the time whatever cornered him there took his other half.

Poor bastard never stood a chance.

Sam does the only thing he can think to do, what he'd want someone to do if that was his brother lying there with most of his insides on the outside, his eyes fixed in a death stare. He slips his jacket off, drapes it over Francisco's chest to cover the worst of the wounds, presses the sightless eyes closed. Francisco's hand is pressed over his shirt pocket, laid open to the bone like most of the torso behind it. It doesn't look like a defensive posture, but Sam guesses it is.

He just wasn't defending _himself_.

Sam's not much of a religious man, and he's defintely not Catholic, but he knows Francisco was, so he makes the sign of the cross over the body and says a little blessing before he pries the hand away and retrieves the picture inside the pocket that he knows by instinct is there.

It feels wrong to look, a little like summoning the dead, but Sam has to see, turns it over as slowly as he'd open the door of an ancient vault.

He was right about Francisco being a daddy. The picture's not old, dated just last week. It probably came in the mail and was waiting for him when he went into town the other morning to mail them his pay. That it's already worn and scratched is just testament to the number of times its been in and out of that pocket already. Sam refuses to believe all the damage is from the attack.

The boy is older, looks it and acts it, Sam guesses. The little girl is snuggled up tight in front of his chest, his arms wrapped protectively around her shoulders. Two little dark-haired kids with big, open eyes and long lashes, waving to a daddy they think is coming back for them.

Sam rubs what he can of the dried blood off with his shirt tail and stands slowly like he's aged a hundred years since he stooped down. Maybe he has, but what's another century to an old soul like him?

Pausing in the doorway only a second to examine the scratches in the wood--made by a five-clawed paw--Sam puts the picture into his own shirt pocket for safe keeping, tries to think what he'll tell Armando when the time comes. He searches his mind in vain for the Spanish word for sorry, decides it sounds more genuine in English. "I'm sorry." It's an apology to both brothers, neither of whom can hear him. Just in case he can't say it when they can.

If Sam needed evidence that there's more out here than Dean's fever hallucinations and a toy fire engine, he has it. The question is, where is it now?

The hairs on the back of Sam's neck stand up, suddenly hyper-aware that he's alone and well out of shouting distance of any help. He tightens his grip firmly on the butt of the gun as he presses himself up against the wall of the shed.

Back to the splintered boards, he shuffles along the wall as silently as he can until he reaches the corner. He peers around then ducks his head back, repeats the action a second time to be sure it's clear before he slips around and along the short side of the building.

When he reaches the next corner, his hand tightens on the gun, his prickling hackles accentuated by the barbs of splinters from the weathered siding. A slow, deep breath just makes his heartbeat louder in his ears as he looks around toward the open spanse of land between the shed and the farm.

He looks, ducks back, looks again, ducks back a second time just long enough to let the landscape image form in his brain, then peeks more slowly this time.

Nothing.

Keeping his hand on the gun, he pushes away from the wall and steps farther out into the open, a wide soft focus to his eyes as he searches for any sign of... well, anything. By now, the sun's half-risen, the shadows shrinking toward the eastern horizon, giving everything the impression of slow, deliberate movement, time marching on, as they say.

Sam doesn't put as much stake in the sixth sense of humans as he does of animals, has even less faith in his own, since he KNOWS where that comes from. He knows _now_. Despite Jess's sweet cajoling and subtle hints about the zen of meditation, his snide rebuttals about the force not being with him, he can't deny the _something_ that sweeps over him when he steps away from the building.

It's like tunnel vision in reverse. Instead of his field of vision narrowing to a single point somewhere on the horizon, the world seems to swirl around and focus on him. It's oppressive, the way Sam felt the first time he had to give a speech in front of his class, dozens of pairs of eyes all focused on him. Back then, he overcame the constriction, got a good breath in his chest, and discovered, hell, he liked the attention. He liked people listening to what he had to say, liked the way he could make them want to hear more. He especially liked that they couldn't tell him to shut up and listen. Not on his time.

This is a whole other kind of attention, and Sam doesn't want to get used to it. He still can't see a thing, nothing out of the ordinary, but he's not stupid enough to stick around and wait for something to materialize. Doesn't even know where to look. Behind the bushes? Under ground? Falling from the sky? It might be the great wide open, but that's just a shooting gallery to him, and he doesn't intend on being the target.

Jerking himself out of the near-hypnotic state he feels lulled into, his feet heavy and mired down, he dives back under cover of the shed and is around the other side in the span of two heartbeats.

From there, it's just twenty yards to where the car's parked beside the barn. He doesn't run, doesn't want to draw any more attention than he already has, but he's never been so grateful for his long legs as he is when he slides his hand into the Impala's door handle.

Dean half-turns his head where it's resting against the back of the seat, cracks open just one eye. It'd be funny, the casual, disinterested sneer Sam usually gets for waking up early when Dean's still swimming on endorphins and has no intention of getting up til he damned well feels like it, except now there's sweat beaded on Dean's forehead, starting to pool behind the ridge of his collar bone. His one open eye is glassy, unfocused, fingers clenched on the arm rest and his shirt, respectively, like any sort of movement beyond this gargantuan effort, results in pain Dean's too tired to mask.

Sam turns the key, checking every window and mirror for movement as trepidation creeps up his spine. "Francisco's dead," Sam sighs, not meeting Dean's eyes. "Something cornered him in the pump house. We gotta get outta here, find a place to regroup." The car rumbles to life, as trusty as ever. "And I have the strangest feeling whatever it was is still hanging around."

Dean closes his eye, tight enough to create wrinkles down the side of his face, and his hands clench into fists, chin trembling. "Chupacabra?" he asks.

"Looks like," he says. "Claw marks were big enough, five toed, too." Before he's finished the sentence, there's a hard thud against the side of the car on his side that vibrates through the interior. It's enough to make Dean sit up in his seat, stifling a groan that morphs into a muted coughing fit.

"What the fuck was that?"

Sam looks but can't see a thing outside of some unsettled dust. "I don't know! I don't see anything!" A second thud, and this time the mirror vibrates so the reflection inside ripples like the skin on a pond. "Shit!"

Sam throws the car into gear and steps on the gas.

Dirt sprays out from under the tires and has just started pelting the side of the barn like buckshot when Dean reaches across and grabs him by the bicep hard enough to draw his attention. Still hacking, he darts his eyes toward the chicken coop, and Sam slams on the brakes. Jethro. They've already lost one member of the Cagel clan to this thing, they can't leave the dog pinned under the steps.

Biting his thumb for a second, Sam decides his best plan of attack will be to go around to the other side of the coop and call the dog. Sam might be strong enough to pull him out by the collar, but no way will he fit far enough under the steps to get a hold and still keep his hand.

He throws the car into reverse and stomps on the gas, fishtails around the other side and slides to a halt, the dust rolling out from beneath the tires and turning back against the side of the building. Leaning across Dean, he opens the passenger door, finds himself lying across the seat and his brother. Dean's too preoccupied with breathing to push him off. Sam cranes his neck until he can see the cave of the steps on the other side and the white of Jethro's fur floating disembodied in the shadows.

"Jethro!" he calls.

Nothing.

"Jethro!"

Not so much as a whimper. The hairs on the back of his neck start to tingle again, and he snaps his head around. From that angle, he can't see anything but the sky. Nothing like leaving your back exposed to make you clench in places you don't normally think about.

"Jethro!" he tries again, his voice higher, more desperate.

Above him, Dean's chest heaves outward in an attempt to get a deeper breath, and then he says, "Tull!" Barely loud enough for Sam to hear, let alone the dog.

"Just hang in there," Sam says, patting his brother's knee. "I got this." He takes a whooping breath of his own and follows Dean's lead. "Tull!"

This time, the white of one paw stretches toward the opening.

"Tull, c'mon boy! Let's go for a ride! Tull!" He pats the bottom edge of the door the way he'd pat his thighs in encouragement if he were crouched in a better position. And because adrenaline slows everything down to frame by frame motion, his mind has time to wonder if this is how little orphan Annie felt trying to call Sandy away from the dog catcher.

Funny how that works.

The second white paw edges forward next to the first and then the nose, but Jethro doesn't come out, just stretches his neck forward, head low over his front legs like Sam's a goat trying to leave the herd.

"Tull!"

The dog ducks lower in position to spring forward but ducks his head down, his gaze narrowing somewhere over Sam's shoulder as a stifled growl rumbles through the crawlspace.

Reaching behind himself, Sam catches hold of the steering wheel and pulls himself half up, just enough to look out the driver side window without exposing himself entirely. He still can't see anything out of the ordinary-- same bushes, same rocks, same open stretch of barnyard...

Same fading moon shadows ebbing over the hardpan... Fuck!... in different directions. Realization dawns slowly with a long, drawn out roll of his eyes toward the clear, cloudless sky.

Moonspots? There's no such thing as far as Sam knows, but either those are moonspots, or chupacabras got themselves some chameleon in their mutant creepoid gene cocktail. At any rate, the spots? They're closing in on him, at least half a dozen on initial count, and he doesn't have time to count again. He spins around, slapping the seat in encouragement. "Tull! Get in here! Right now!"

The dog backs away. Shit. Sam fists a hand in the hair at the back of his head like he can yank an idea out of his brain one follicle at a time. He's not leaving the dog, especially now that he's probably given away his location. "Tull, goddamitt!" Dean grabs him by the wrist, locking gazes with him in that familiar way that means, 'get your head in the game, soldier!'

Sam bites his tongue. Dean' right. That's not helping anything. Deep breaths. Clear mind. Slow in, slow out. He opens his mouth, still no idea what he plans to say, and can't believe what comes out.

"Sitting on the park bench..."

No way did he just sing. He can't sing. He's terrible. Even he knows that. It's just not something he does. Except he totally just did. He cracks one eye open to see the dog, now half out of his hiding space, and Dean's giving him a thumb's up from the passenger seat. No, Sam can't sing worth a damn, but it's working.

He closes his eye again, projects his best air of relaxed and easygoing, despite the vulgarity of what he's about to say. "Eyeing little girls with bad intent!"

"That's... that's my boy," Dean croaks, his face split with more than just pain as he makes 'keep it rolling' motions with his hand, circling in the air.

Sam peeks a second time. The floor of the shed is too low for the dog to stand, but he's crawling, inch by inch along the ground on his belly, whimpering the whole time. "That's it, boy," Sam says, stealing a glance over his shoulder at the encroaching shadows as they snake along the dirt. They're close-- breathing down his neck and pissing on the car tire close. Sam's not pulling any punches now. He whips around one last time, and the next line's shouted more than sung.

"Snot is running down his nose!"

And with that last bit of encouragement, Jethro clears the shed and scrambles into the Dean's lap. "Watch your tail," Sam orders, forgetting Tull doesn't have one. He stomps the gas. The sudden change in accleration slams the passenger door shut just as another loud thud emanates from the door panel on his side. He's sure it's hard enough to leave a dent, but there's still nothing visible, not through the window or any mirrors, when he peels out and heads back to the house.

The barnyard's not exactly the Texas World Speedway, too many gates and outbuildings to swerve around to get up any real speed. Seems like he no sooner swerves around one and gets straightened out, then another obstacle appears in his path. He just keeps pointed in the general direction of the house, doing his best under the circumstances to get them all there ahead of whatever's on their tail.

There's a gap between the house and the garage. Jeannie's got a thing about rodents, but the two buildings share a common roof. The space between is just less than enough to park a car in. Sam hesitates for a split second as he fishtails around the side of the machine shed, the house looming ahead. The last thing he wants to do is lead whatever this is back to the house, but if it finds them anyway, the only light still on as far as he can see, then he has no idea what kind of defenses the Cagels might. He, on the other hand, has an arsenal in the trunk.

He presses his foot to the floor, trying to give himself as much of a head start as he can. He's not sure it works, since the tires kick out enough dirt to render his mirrors useless. He's glad for all the hours Dad took them training at the demolition derby park when they needed to learn high-speed driving maneuvers. Sometimes it's not about outrunning the evil sons of bitches. Sometimes, it's just about getting there in time to save the guy who can't.

Sam's a little rusty, but he keeps the gas pedal floored 'til the very last second. No pulling punches now, he then slams on the brake and jerks the steering wheel to the right. The back end fishtails around the front. Sam's completely blinded by the wall of dust that rolls up and and banks off the house, turning back on itself in a vortex of dark and darker. Enough hand to hand sparring matches with a big brother that didn't believe in babying him, made Sam pretty good at keeping track of objects in space. He trusts the same instinct to picture the rear bumper and its proximity to the corner of the house, straightens the wheel and pumps the gas for a second before braking to a full stop and throwing the car in park.

He's only half aware that Dean and the dog have both been tossed against him and that he's got his arm wrapped protectively around them both when he throws the driver door open. "Go!"

The dog whimpers and jumps to attention but doesn't jump out. "Tull! Get in the house!" Jethro jumps out into the enclave between the house and the garage, runs halfway to the side door and spins around, hair bristling.

Not wanting to open the exposed passenger side door, Sam tightens his grip around Dean's shoulders and yanks them both from the car. Dean's wheezing into the shoulder of Sam's jacket and tripping over Sam's feet, hot and wobbly on his pins. Sam muscles on for the both of them. "Dude, you're the worst dancer ever. No wonder you couldn't get a date to the prom."

"Didn't wanna... wanna tie myself down... to just one chick," Dean huffs.

Sad thing is, that's probably the truth. Sam doesn't have time to contemplate it, though. Armando emerges from the side door and muscles his way under Dean's other arm. Sam nods thanks, and looks back over his shoulder. "Shit! I gotta go back for the weapons. We'll be sitting ducks without 'em."

Dean clings to him for a second but lets go, more a command of 'be careful' in the gesture than an argument. "Journal," he says.

"Okay, the journal, too," Sam agrees. He can't help but pause a second as he ducks out from under Dean's arm, suddenly reluctant to relinquish the protective hold and trust someone else to take over. Dean senses his fears and does what any big brother would do... elbows Sam in the ribs and jerks his head toward the car.

"Friggin... go!" That is an order, and Sam takes it, casting just one glance at Armando.

"Get him in the house, and do not stop for anything!" he shouts. He's not sure Armando understands, but he nods, starts leading Dean away.

Sam's already to the car and leaning over the trunk, his arms full of whatever weaponry he can grab when the other two disappear into the house via the side door. He grabs the journal over the bag of rock salt and hopes the Cagels have salt in the pantry. He doesn't even know if it'll do him any good, hence, his need for the journal. Can't defeat what he can't understand.

He catches Jethro's change in posture out of the corner of his eye as he starts to turn around, and all his blood rushes down to his feet. It's like one of those dreams where you run and run and never get anywhere, the boogeyman steadily gaining.

Jethro lunges at the same time as the Impala's shocks groan. The front of the car sinks a fraction of an inch as the hood caves slightly, suddenly pock-marked under invisible claws. There's not even enough light here between the shadow of the buildings and the dust to even make out the silhouette of what must be there. It's the best camouflage Sam's ever not seen.

Jethro's hackles rise up until his collar disappears in the ruff of his neck, shoulders hunched up over his skull and his lips curled back to his nostrils. He crouches down on the ground until his chin scrapes the dust, his throat convulsing with a savage growl.

The claw patterns on the hood scrape and groan in a slow turn toward the dog, the entire car leaning over the left front tire.

Sam drops most of what he's carrying. With no time to load the shotgun or anything that he thinks might actually make a dent in the thing, he goes for the pistol in the back of his pants.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Nothing. The thing doesn't even move. Not a drop of blood. Nothing.

The roof starts to cave in, the pock marks now clearly in the shape of massive paw prints. Apparently the gun is good for drawing attention to oneself. Sam'll keep that in mind when this thing is gnawing his long bones like toothpicks.

"Shit!"

Jethro moves first, lightning quick right at the back of Sam's legs. Sam lands on his face with an oomph, the pointed end of a crossbow dart jammed under his jaw, dangerously close to his jugular vein. At the same time, the cluster of recycling bins that'd been right behind Sam, explodes under the force of something much bigger than the dog. Aluminum cans and glass bottles of all shapes and size fly out and clatter onto the asphalt, some of them broken and jagged. Jethro's at Sam's back, turned with his tailless backside to Sam. The little beggar not only saved him from getting his head knocked off but is sticking around to keep him from losing his ass, too.

Grunting, Sam struggles to pull himself upright, his right hand landing on the bottom half of a broken bottle. "AH!" Shit, that smarts, but there's no time to deal with that just yet.

He whirls around, grabbing the nearest thing at hand, a long knife with an edge serrated like alligator teeth, the barbs pointed back toward the hilt, meant to go in and not come out without a massive effort. It's a killing knife, not a defensive weapon. You only get one shot to do it right. Which, of course, means it's practically useless on an opponent he can't even see.

Jethro leaps back suddenly with a yelp. From the way he lands, on his side and struggling to right himself, it's obvious he didn't jump at all, probably batted aside by some huge paw. Before Sam can turn around enough to face his attacker, he's jerked by one leg, so quickly he ends up back on his stomach, his head rebounding off the pavement.

He feels himself being dragged backward, the scrape of blacktop under his chin and across his stomach, feels the burn of dirty rock and tar getting under is skin before he feels the gnawing, actual teeth gnashing against his lower leg bone.

On instinct alone, he kicks back with his free leg, doesn't expect to hit anything. What good is a foot against something bullets can't even touch. But he does. His knee jolts back as his foot connects solidly with something. It's not a good kick. The angle's all wrong, and he didn't have time to chamber it properly, but it's enough to stop him sliding backward and get his bloodied forearms up under his torso.

With a guttural moan, he flips himself around, just catching a glimpse of Armando coming down the steps with a hunting rifle trained on the action.

Sam's shocked to find the chupacabra fully visible when he turns to face it. Visible and covered in his blood. It's jaw is wrapped around his lower leg in the meatiest part of his calf, and from the looks of it, there's room for his other leg in there. It's eyes, glowing red eyes, just like Dean said, fix on Sam from atop its snarling nose. It doesn't have the leathery nose of a dog or the whiskered nose of a cat. Its nostrils are long like gills across the top of its face almost from muzzle to eyes, fluttering in and out with the controlled concentration of a python or a pit bull. Its ears are just molded ridges around deep cavities at the farthest points of a broad, flat skull.

Sam raises the knife over his head, pulling from the shoulder and deep into his lats. The creature sees the glint off the blade and starts to loosen its grip, but can't let go fast enough, anchored tight by two massive teeth in the front that look more like rodent or maybe sabre tooth tiger in origin. It seems caught around one of his shin bones or between the two. Sam doesn't have time to decide which before his vision blacks out from the sensation of bone against bone. He aims blind, putting all of his strength behind the knife, and screams as it drives home behind the skull and jars the jaw, driving it against his own bones.

Gritting his teeth and taking hold of the hilt with both hands, he jerks it down and back with the full force of his weight. There's a pop, and a wet tearing sound, then he falls all the way to the ground, the creature's detached head still attached to his leg. The body goes limp.

He's too stunned to move, despite the prodding of broken glass and the menagerie of weapons and charms he's landed on. There's a chillpainting itself over him that wasn't there before, and something keeps dripping in his eyes. Worst of all is the weight across his right leg, the chupacabra's head still trying to devour its last meal.

After a few agonizing seconds of panting and blinking through the sweat he can now feel soaking through his shirt, he hears something moving behind him. He half-reaches for his gun, and the movement jars his leg so that lightning bolts shoot up and through his spine. He arches, biting his lip to keep from screaming. Mercifully, he sees a long muzzle and two different colored eyes framed in sable red fur. "Good boy," he pants, woozy and exhausted. It's the last coherent thing he can manage, and he lets himself flop back onto the ground.

Things stagger in and out of focus for awhile. He doesn't know how long. First, there's a cold nose, and a wet tongue on his face. Then, there are strong hands at his shoulder, Cappy's voice, "Get a good hold on him before I try to move this. I imagine even a few pints low he can take my head off."

Then, there's more lighting, and more arms around and under his shoulders. He thinks he tips upright, but it's hard to tell through the vertigo.

He doesn't make it up the steps, before he passes out completely.

TBC

A/N: So, who's still with me? *taps on glass* anyone here? LOL. Also, thanks to Jo for buying one of my stories in the fics4books auction. I've started working on it... show of hands, who thinks I should post it in chapters and who thinks I should post all at once.


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N:** Disclaimers and warnings on Chapter One, as always.

**A/N2:** I'm probably shooting myself in the foot posting on Thanksgiving, but assuming at least a few of you don't celebrate and are going out of your skins waiting for someone to post something today, here you go. Um, this chapter is unbetaed. Bwahahahaha!

**Chapter Five**

Next thing Sam knows for sure, there's screaming, panting in his ear, footsteps on ceramic tile, and then wooden stairs creaking under the weight of all those feet, telltale clicking toenails of at least one dog being pushed, pulled, or dragged along. Then, there's a chill in the air, the sound of a heavy door slamming, furniture sliding, more screaming. There might be glass breaking, but it all bleeds together.

When it melts apart, gray bleeding into the black, and then spots of white like static on an old television with no signal, everything hurts. His skin burns no matter which way he turns, and his whole body throbs with a pulse that seems to start in his heel like a bad bone spur. Opening his eyes is the worst idea he's ever had. Feels like once he does, even a small crack, his eyes and all of his brain down to the raw nerve endings in his spinal cord, get sucked out his eye socket, and leave his skull a pounding, empty void.

"Slow there, son, you've lost yourself a good couple pints. Everything's gonna be a might sluggish for a bit here."

It takes him a minute or two to place the gravelly voice. Really, it's the breath that jogs his memory, the pungent aroma of pipe tobacco thick in the air. Cappy's at his side, poking at a bandage on his leg that Sam can only see by rolling his eyes as far down as they'll go and squinting over his cheek bones, still too weak to lift his head.

He might be feeling puny and lethargic, hurting all over, but he's not stupid. This is no hospital, and somehow, he thinks there really needs to be a hospital, and i.v. drips with the good drugs in 'em. Now. Please.

"Is he awake?" Jeannie sounds far away. He can't see her for the bare light bulb right above his head and the cloying shadows everywhere beyond.

"Something like that," Cappy says, prying Sam's eye open and looking inside. Reminds Sam of Dean trying to gross him out when they were kids by turning his eyelids inside out. Sam always hated that, and friggin' Dean could walk around for hours with his eyelids flipped...

"Dean!" Sitting up is an even worse idea than opening his eyes. All the vacuum in his head fills suddenly with ice, and his hands fly up, the heels pressing into the sockets. Those are bandaged, too and scratch at his eyes.

"Now, there, just lay back down for awhile, we got things under control here."

"Dean?"

"Here. I'm coming." That voice Sam can't name, because it's not one he's ever heard, scraped raw and whisper soft with an underlying gurgle. He can't tell where it comes from, either, just out of sight.

"The hell you are," Jeannie snaps from somewhere over Cappy's shoulder.

"Jeannie's watching him just over yonder. Sorry, he got the couch and you got he pool table. The light was just better here, and it wasn't easy picking all the gravel and glass out of those cuts you got all over yerself."

That's the first Sam notices the bare light bulb over his head is inside a Bud Light fixture. "Where...?"

"Basement," Cappy answers before Sam can finish, dabbing what smells like rubbing alcohol on Sam's forehead with a cotton ball. It stings, icy-hot needles piercing cuts he can't see but can map out just from the path of the burn across his skin. "My own private fox hole. Haven't been able to stay a night in a house without one since Korea. And believe me you, when those things started coming through the windows, I knew enough to go to ground. Worth the extra 50G's we spent on the house." He holds up the cotton ball like it's some kind of point he's trying to make. "'ts lucky for you I got all the leftovers from when I closed the clinic stored down here. Anyway, we got most everyone herded down here when all hell started breaking loose. Still don't know where..."

"Francisco's dead." A lot is fuzzy, but Sam remembers that. He pats his chest, realizing he's wearing only his undershirt. "My shirt?" Swallowing hard, he stretches out his bandaged hand to take the garment from Cappy, who fetches it from somewhere in the dark Sam can't see. He fumbles in it, cursing his fat, useless fingers, finally draws the photograph out of his breast pocket. "Thought Armando would want this," he says, offering.

Cappy takes it, makes a show of not looking upset by forcing his shoulders back and nodding curtly. "He's guarding the door. I'll give it to him after I finish here." Setting the photograph carefully into one of the side pockets on the pool table, he clears his throat and goes back to work cleaning the cuts with a tweezers to dig out the larger debris and a syringe full of something Sam guesses is saline to flush out the rest. Cappy catches him looking nervously down his torso at his leg, most of which is hidden under a large layer of gauze padding, stained red in the middle and fading to pink at the edges. "It's kind of a mess," he offers. "Not broken, s'far as I can tell, but there's more damage than I could stitch up even if I had any anesthetic, which I don't, as I'm sure you're well aware."

Sam nods, biting back a grunt of pain as the vet continues his ministrations, large drops of pained sweat burning in the corners of his eyes. "How long?" he asks, feeling a little lost in space with no windows to gage the angle of the sun.

"You've been out all day, son. In and out. By my watch, it's coming on midnight. Not to worry, though. We got things under control for the time being. We got a pantry down here, chemical toilet, bottled water. Just no phone and no electricity." He shrugs and nods toward the light overhead. "Aside from generator power, of course. Once that's gone." He trail's off, focuses on the matter at hand.

"Stupid, stubborn..." There's a rustle of fabric, sounds like bedsheets on a clothesline, and Jeannie appears over Cappy's shoulder, backing into view with her attention fixed somewhere Sam can't quite see. She casts a glaring frown at her husband. "I told you to knock him out while you had the chance. Hasn't slept a wink, and now he insists on coming back out here."

"Well, let him come. Maybe put his mind at ease enough to get some rest."

"I got a cast iron skillet that'll work just as good. One good knock to the forehead..."

"I'm right here," the unfamiliar voice rasps. There must be bedsheets strung up between the rafters as room dividers, because Dean's face appears between a fold of darkness, practically pale enough to glow as Jeannie steps back, her hands tight around his elbow and bicep. The only thing recognizeable is the disgusted grimace on his face as he bats at her hand. "You can stop talking about me like I'm the dog or something." Sam can almost hear his eyes rolling.

Dean's not coughing anymore, and yet he sounds and looks worse. Sam hopes that's some kind of prescription strength cough syrup knocking him on his ass and not the virus. He wants to ask, but Dean's face is set in determination like it's taking every ounce of strength to cross the few feet of space between them, and Sam doesn't want to distract him.

Jeannie holds tight to Dean's arm, despite his feeble attempts to brush her off, and Cappy sidesteps along the table to reveal a folding director's chair behind him. Dean doesn't even try to shrug off the old vet's offer of the chair or the strong, knotted hands that take his other arm and guide him into it. By the time Dean's seated, he's so winded, pasty and dotted with sweat, that all he can do is lean forward in the chair, bent sharply at the waist as his forehead presses into the cool wood of the pool table. After a few, less than productive, wispy breaths, he rolls his head sideways enough to look Sam in the eye, dark circles the size of saucers dragging at his face. "'bout..." he closes his eyes, takes another few quick sips of air, "...bout damned time you woke your ass up."

Sam can tell from his eyes that he wants to say more and just doesn't have it in him to do it. "I don't have a mirror handy, but I got five to one odds says I look better than you. Maybe you should follow my lead instead of being your normal, stubborn self."

Dean doesn't even nod his head, just rolls it along the table to meet Cappy's eyes. "He's okay?"

Sam's turn for righteous indignation. "I'm right here. You could ask me."

Dean doesn't turn to him, but Cappy does, shifting closer to Sam's head.

"I think you'll be all right once a real doctor gets ahold of you. Some scarring's likely, but no permanent damage. I wouldn't mind getting my hands on some antibiotics in the interim, though. All's I can do is try to keep it clean and stave off infection, pray that the phones come back on so we can call for help. Though, I can't say's I like the idea of having anyone drive up on whatever we got going on up there." As if on cue, one of the kitchen chairs scrapes across the floor above their heads like something walks into it and keeps on going, oblivious that it's hit anything. Wood sliding against ceramic tile sounds ominously like steel beams bending and groaning right before they collapse. That's one of those things Sam probably shouldn't know but does.

"Any idea how many?" Sam hisses, embarrassed at the way the words stutter due to the trembling in his stomach muscles radiating out into a whole body shake.

Cappy shakes his head, squeezes a steady stream of saline into a particularly large gash on Sam's stomach. "But I think it's safe to say that chupacabra are pack animals." He laughs wearily. "Learn something new everyday. 's'old as I am, I'd'a thought I'd seen everything."

"I'm sorry," Dean whispers, his breath barely fogging against the polished wood. Sam and Cappy both look down at him, puzzled frowns pinching their faces.

"For what?" Cappy asks.

"Most likely killing the female is what brought the rest of the pack. We should've been more careful." Leave it to Dean to blame himself for the shit hitting the fan when he's covered head to toe from trying to stop it.

"Dean..." Sam can barely reach him but stretches out his fingers so they just brush the tips of Dean's hair.

"Horse shit," Cappy hisses. "Killing that critter is what we paid you to do, and if she was as gravid as you say, then you did a lot of other people a favor by keeping them pups from being whelped."

"Amen to that," Jeannie agrees. She's standing at Dean's shoulder, a digital baby thermometer pressed into his ear canal. Her fingers smooth through the hair at the base of his skull, and Dean doesn't so much as move. The thermometer beeps, and she takes a peek, shaking her head. "And that's that," she says. "You've seen your brother now, made your little smoochie faces, and now you're going back to bed, because I, for one am not gonna carry you when you fall out that chair."

"What is it?" Sam ignores the throbbing pain in all his limbs and torso, raises himself up onto his elbows to see over Cappy's shoulder. "Ist it bad?"

Jeannie doesn't look at him, but Sam can just about read her lips, catches enough of her hushed whisper to fill in the gaps. "103," she says. "Not getting any better."

"Dean," Sam huffs. "Go lay down. I'm fine. Really. And to be honest, this table's hell on my back. I'm about ready to ditch it. You get back on the couch, and I'll see if I can't get the old man here to drag me over once he finishes these bandages."

Dean starts to shake his head, an angry red welt forming at the point of contact with the table. Sam can hear him insisting he's fine even though he doesn't have the energy to actually say the words. Sam almost feels guilty for calling his bluff. But only almost.

"Dean, I mean it." To Cappy he says, "I was trying to get a book out of the car when it attacked. A journal. Big, kinda old and beat up looking..."

Cappy nods, "Yeah, we got that inside."

"Uh, good," Sam says. "We're gonna need that if wanna figure out how to get out of here." Grunting, he feigns a headache, grimaces and rubs his fingers over his eyelids. "I think...ah...I think I'm still a little dizzy from the blood loss. Got a little double vision going on. Dean, you'll have to start the research without me. And the sooner the better. Basements aren't exactly known for their sterile conditions." Sam feels like an ass for pushing Dean's hero buttons, but in his defense, he's only embellishing the facts a little, not lying. Anyway, it works. Dean nods , a look on his Sam knows too well. Guilt. Burden. Weariness from always taking the heaviest part of the load. He can't even meet Sam's gaze before he lets himself be led away, back behind the curtain.

As soon as he's out of sight, Sam lurches upward, head almost clanking into the Budweiser light.

"Now hold on there, cowboy," Cappy reprimands, pushing his hand into Sam's sternum. "You try to swing that there leg off the table, and I guarantee you'll pass out. Do us both a favor and lay your ass down."

Sam resists, his heart pounding in his chest, jaw steeling with determination. "Dean..." Sam knows there's more going on with his brother than a bad cold, and it's not getting better. It's getting worse. Wasting time to recoup is marginally acceptable, but only when it's not Dean's time they're wasting, and Sam has a sinking feeling they already wasted way too much before Sam decided to make himself a chupacabra chew toy.

"He's holding his own," Cappy assures. "And if you lie down, I'll tell you what I know."

Still uncertain, Sam chances moving his covered leg. His vision immediately swims on the wave of nausea that rushes through him. Buttoning his eyelids down tight, he nods and lays back down, chagrined by the sweat slicking his skin and the chalky dry of his mouth.

"You okay?" Cappy waits for Sam to open his eyes and nod. He nods to himself lips curling inward like he's holding back words he hasn't thought through yet. "Your brother's pretty sick, Sam. And I don't think it's the flu anymore. If it is, then it's one nasty strain."

"People die from the flu," Sam offers, the question phrased as a statement.

"Yes, they do." Cappy takes a deep breath, but he doesn't say, 'Dean won't,' and that pretty much answers the question Sam never asked. "His breathing's been getting worse. The cough got pretty bad for awhile like his body was really making the effort to kick out whatever infection that is, but it's tuckered out now. His fever's spiking." He pauses, focuses on cleaning more of Sam's cuts while he gathers his thoughts. "Truth is, I'm not really equipped to do more than support him while he fights this infection, and I don't even know how best to do that without a diagnosis. I gave him some Albuterol to stop the bronchospasms from the dry cough and open the airway, but that didn't seem to help at all."

"Albuterol?" Do vets carry that? For what? Asthmatic chihuahuas?

"Sam, I'm seventy years old and been smoking a pipe for over forty of 'em. If I didn't have a prescription for Albuterol, my doctor probably couldn't get malpractice insurance."

Sam snickers, not because it's funny, but because it's a joke, and he's supposed to. He's been laughing on autopilot for years, now. Among other things.

"Anyway, it didn't help much. His breathing's getting shallower, and from listening to his chest, I'd say the congestion is leaving almost no room for oxygen exchange. Without an x-ray, I can't determine more than that. I'd try antibiotics if I had them, but I don't think shoving a horse pill down his gullet is the answer. My injectables are all out in the barn for doctoring the goats. Besides, some viruses, including the flu, don't respond to antibiotics, and there's a chance he'd suffer worse from the side effects than if we gave him nothing at all."

Sam blinks. Hard. Because there's sweat in his eyes... or something, and they're welling up in protest, draining down the back of his throat like the dread creeping in to strangle him. "So, what do we do about it?"

Cappy pauses, pressing his hands flat against the felt of the table, head bowed like he's thinking so hard he hasn't got the strength for anything else. "Pray and get the Hell outta this basement."

Which, of course, won't be any problem at all. After all, they're Winchesters, hunters, soldiers. So what if Dean's unconsious, Sam doesn't have a leg to stand on, literally, and there's something upstairs-- scratch that-- a whole LOT of somethings upstairs Sam doesn't know how to fight. He'll think of something. He has to.

--

Thinking and strategizing would be a hell of a lot easier if he didn't keep passing out. He blacks out again while Cappy's wrapping a compression bandage around his mangled leg to hold all the dressings in place and slow the oozing blood. He'd said it would hurt like a bitch but only argued with Sam about it for half a minute. The worst of the bleeding was stopped (Sam doesn't remember that either, but it might explain the tang of burnt flesh in the air), and mangled or not, they need Sam, at the very least, able to drag himself around without passing out. When he opens his eyes, the first thing he asks isn't, 'How much fuel's left in the generator,' or, 'What kind of weapons do you have on hand?' It's "How long?" and then, because it's morning, and something feels darker than it had in the dead of night, "Dean?"

"Finally passed out about an hour ago. He asked for you. Something about that book of y'all's."

"Can I see him?" It's more a question of whether Cappy thinks his leg will fall off in transit, because aside from that, nothing will stop Sam from going.

"I think that's a good idea," isn't exactly the answer he's expecting. If he wasn't already nauseous from blood loss and pain, the ice cold knot of dread that's crammed down his throat at that moment would do it, for sure.

Sam sniffles, more an inward hiss with a crinkle of his nose and something he has to swallow around, feels the way his lips purse by the ache in the corners. The blur in his vision is just... well, it just is. Holding out a hand, he chokes, "Then, let's do it."

Cappy catches Sam's arm at the elbow, avoiding most of the bandages, and helps him to sit up slowly, levering him up with surprising strength for a man of his age. He waits with a firm hand on Sam's shoulder, while Sam shuts his eyes against the crushing pain in his skull and the swirling together of the shadows in his peripheral vision. The hand is steady and helps Sam to steady himself well enough to open his eyes, a little at a time, guarded from the glare of that one light overhead. Once he's sitting and oriented, he nods and tests out moving his legs.

The left one is fine, the skin just a little tighter from having some of it torn away and the edges stitched back together. The right one looks like the appendage of something out of a movie that ought to have heiroglyphic subtitles, three times its normal size, not counting the throb that makes it feel like it'd fill the whole room. He swears he can see it move in and out with each heart beat, like a snake swallowing a rabbit twice its diameter. Moving it feels like what he imagines a pig carcass feels like after being boiled and while it's being rolled on the giant brushes to scrape off the hair. Except not that good.

He's been lying on one of those foam egg carton mattress pads, and his fingers stab through it while he fights to breathe through the pain and push it somewhere he can at least think over it. Ignoring the pain isn't going to happen, but he doesn't pass out. He'll take small victories over none.

Cappy's watching him, no longer touching, too aware of how hyper-sensitive nerve endings can get when there's too much going on that's never gone on before. The wary way he looks out from beneath a furrowed brow, both eyes wide, his hands at the ready but floating useless like the hands of a hostage with a gun pressed to his head, is enough to make Sam want to retch for being the cause of it. Now he knows why Dean protests so much about the hovering and mother henning. Nothing like being the cause of so much second hand trauma to make a person want to spit nails.

Dropping his eyes to the table, Sam doesn't trust his leg to move on its own, or doesn't want to see what kind of feedback the muscles will give when he tries to make any big movements, so he cups his hands beneath his thigh and lifts the leg off the table with upper body strength alone. That's all fine and good until he sets it down on the edge and tries to bend the knee. He arches off the table like someone's put a charge through it, and immediately straightens it out, every muscle tight and quivering, paralyzed with the fear of what the next twitch will do. So, okay, bending is bad. He'll keep that in mind.

He swings the other leg around, this one dangling toward the floor, feels Cappy put an arm around his waist on the right side and goes for broke, sliding down slowly until his one foot touches down. There's a split second when he straightens, when he remembers why blood loss is such a bitch, since the blood that's no longer pumping to his brain in that instant, is gravely missed by the rest of him. He sways, and Cappy, bless his geriatric, pipe-huffing heart, holds him up. In the process, his right hip goes a little too slack, and his right toes touch down on the concrete. If he needed a glass of cold water thrown in his face, the icy voltage shooting up from the floor to his brain has the same effect.

Sam hisses inward and bites the inside of his lower lip to keep from cursing, blows out through the corners of his mouth. His vision fizzes out at the sides but doesn't fade. He's well aware the grip he has on Cappy's shoulder has to be bruising.

"Holy hell!" Cappy says, and Sam's lets go of his shoulder.

"I'm s-sorry," he apologizes, fingers white on the side of the pool table.

"Don't be," Cappy chuckles. "I just figured it needed to be said. 'ts gotta hurt like a son of a bitch."

Ain't that the understatement of the century. Sam laughs at, which, ouch, then hisses back in.

"I wish I had something stronger to give you for the pain. Aside from Jeannie's arthritis pills, the strongest I got is some Bute paste. I don't think it's approved in humans, and the consensus in horses is, it tastes like shit."

Sam's grateful for the attempt at ligthening the mood, it gives him time to salvage some of his pride, drawing on some strength he doesn't rememer ever tapping into before. He stands for the longest time, swaying like a tree in the wind, then finally just grabs Cappy's soldier again and nods. "Let's do this."

He'd think he was setting himself up for a trek across Death Valley, the way the dark looms before him like it might swallow him whole. It's the not-seeing that makes it seem impossible. He's heard of swimmers making record attempts, swimming miles and miles across choppy water only to give up in sight of land because fog rolls in, and they can't see the finish.

It's not really that far. Once they're out from under the glare of the light, he can see a sheet strung up from the rafters just four or five feet ahead of him. A dim light on the other side casts the shadow of Jeannie in her rocking chair across the fabric. She isn't rocking, though, leaning forward with her hand on something Sam can't quite make out.

Four or five feet might as well be as many miles for two men with only two and a half good legs between them. It's Cappy's right leg, Sam's left leg, then Cappy's left and Sam's right at the same time, the former dragging the latter like they're splinted together. And they have to stop after every step so Sam can wrestle control back from the spinning room before they continue. Sam's panting and dripping sweat into his eyes by the time they get to the edge of the sheet. Cappy's not much better off.

When they pull the sheet back, Jeannie sits up slowly, like she's deep in concentration or prayer. She leaps up quickly when she sees Sam swaying precariously against her husband's side.

Sam's too tired and in too much pain to argue as they each take an arm and settle him in the rocking chair, even though he suspects they're trying to keep him from seeing Dean until he's sitting down. He wishes it wasn't a rocking chair when his whole stomach flip-flops with the movement and he nearly puts his foot down to stop it before he remembers what a bad idea that would be.

When he does get a look at his brother, he can't look away. Even in the dim light, Dean's color is all wrong, pasty and grey with a tinge of something around the lips that could be blue. His eyes are sunken and puffy around the sockets. Freckles stand out across his nose and melt together into a blush at the tops of his cheekbones, stark against the pale of his skin like the makeup on a kibuki actor.

All that, even the... clown-like... appearance, Sam can handle. He's unfortunately spent plenty of time watching over Dean when he's sick. When there are only two and no decent medical insurance between you, a lot of hats get worn. Nurse is Sam's least favorite. He likes it only slightly better than patient. So, this is something Sam's seen before, fever and general blah that makes him ache with empathy.

But this is worse.

Dean's breathing is ragged, panting. His lips are parted slightly, and his cheeks hollow with each inhale in unison with the little space of soft skin above his nostrils. His chest moves in more of a flutter than in and out, expanded nearly as far as it can go and only rising and falling a fraction of an inch with each puff. Every now and again, his whole torso shakes. Sam recognizes it as a cough that never makes it to the surface. Like when Dean was trying to hide it earlier, only now it's hiding itself.

While Sam leans in, Dean opens his eyes. They're glassy and fever bright. He looks right at Sam, then right past, blinks slowly, and starts to slide back into sleep, snaps awake again for another second, the words, "Goat sucker... vampire... blood," choke out in a whisper. He tries so hard to stay awake that his eyes are still half-open even after they've glazed over with sleep.

"Dean? Dean, hey." He resists the urge to reach out and turn Dean's face back toward himself, partly because that's always awkward unless he's examining a cut, and partially because if he stops bracing against the sofa, he'll rock forward and end up catching himself with his bad leg.

Dean seems to hear, turns back toward Sam on his own, but his chest shakes again. He struggles for a second to regain the rhythm of his panting breaths. He swallows and gasps for several seconds before his eyes roll back in his head again. There's a moment when Sam can't tell if he's still breathing at all, but then Dean swallows, and the panting breath resumes. Not that it's reassuring at all. They hit a deer once with the car. It had been breathing the exact same way before Dean put it out of its misery.

Sam looks to Cappy, feels his lip trembling. He must look a lot like that deer himself about then. "He's..." he swallows. "The fever. Is it too high? Shouldn't we, like..."

"It's 103," Cappy says, putting a hand on Sam's shoulder. "That's high, but not too high. Right now, the fever's the only thing fighting this bug, and I'd like to let it take its best shot. We don't have a lot of options."

"How long do you think he can hold out like this?"

"He's tough. Tougher than most, I'd say."

"And stubborn as a mule," Jeannie nods, no humor in her voice at all.

"But I'm not going to lie to you," Cappy says, and Sam can't help but notice the way Jeannie turns away and busies herself with ringing a cloth into a basin. "He's suffocating. I keep hoping he'll cough some of that up, but he's just too exhausted. All those muscles are working trying get oxygen to the rest of his body, and they're going to start breaking down, dumping lactic acid into his bloodstream. When that happens, along with the lack of oxygen and buildup of C02, there's gonna be a whole cascading reaction set in motion. If he's not in a hospital by then..." He doesn't say what Sam already knows, what Sam can see without death visions and psychic phenomena.

Sam smooths the sheet over Dean's chest by tugging at the edge closest to his hand and rubbing his thumbs back and forth over the creases. If only it were that easy to even out everything else. "So, I guess we need to get out of here."

"We've been trying phone every few minutes," Jeannie offers, the token hope.

"They won't come back on," Sam says. "Not so long as those things are out there."

"Wait, you think they, what? Cut the power? The phone lines? We're secluded, but we still get wireless." Cappy seems more intrigued than anything.

"No," Sam sits up a little straighter, keeps his hand moving back and forth on the sheet without really thinking about it. "A lot of supernatural entities disrupt radio and electrical signals. Usually, the more powerful the entity, the greater the disruption. Sort of a calling card if you know how to recognize it." He drops his gaze to his lap. "I should've known when the yard light went out, but I had these things pegged as more a natural anomaly than actually supernatural. Just bad genes and hybrid vigor. Mean and ugly, but still just flesh and blood." His laugh is airy, more like an outward hiccup than anything. "I'd say I was wrong."

"Not your fault, hon." Jeannie places a hand on his thigh, making him glaringly aware for the first time that he's only wearing his boxers, but it's a gentle pat, and he takes it for what it is. Reassurance. She's got four Advil and a glass of water at the ready, and he takes those, too.

"One probably couldn't knock out the power and the phones, but a whole pack..." He realizes how dire that makes things. No one's getting them out of here, no one but themselves. His throat closes off as he glances over his brother's body, shaking and struggling for breath.

"Then, you just tell us how to fight 'em, son. We're old but not useless. Tell us how to kill these things, and we'll do it."

"That's just it," Sam says, his voice trembling. "I don't know."

TBC

A/N: Posting longer chapters means I'm fast approaching the end of the already written portions of this fic. I think maybe three more chapters, but I can't say for sure, depends how wordy I get in the rewrite.

For those of you wondering about my other WsIP, I'll probably post more Cracked next, since y'all seem to really love that one. Vestiges is taking longer for me to work through. Like I said, it's like pulling teeth to write season 4 Dean and Sam, but I am plugging away. I'm not making any promises about when that will be posted, though. I also have a sort of self-indulgent wee!Dean fic I'm thinking about posting. I'm not sure y'all will tolerate another WIP, though, and this isn't even counting the 'verse I have running on super_real, and the other two fics4books auction fics I am working on. Rest assured, I'm writing every day, but this is the only one near completion. The rest will be posted as I get around to it. Thanks for understanding.


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N:** Sorry this one took longer than planned. I have a ton of WIPs at the moment and when one of them wants to be worked on, this one gets pushed to the wayside since it's mostly already written. You'll be happy to know I've got a couple thousand words of "Cracked" written, too, just need to get straight in my head what I want to reveal and when. "Vestiges" is taking longer. I said that one was like pulling teeth. Plus, I owe another fic for the fics4books auction, and now that I've got a grasp on it, it just keeps growing and growing. Again, don't hate me. I'm writing, I swear, lol.

All disclaimers and warnings on Chapter One.

**Chapter Six**

Cappy scrubs a hand over his stubbled jaw, working his lips the way he would around the stem of his pipe. It's not just the absence of the actual pipe that makes anxiety twang in the dead air. "I'll be honest with ya, Sam, I ain't too keen on hanging around this foxhole much longer."

"I don't think any of us are," Sam agrees. Then, because this is his kind of war, and he's feeling like an army of one, "I'll think of something."

Sam totters over his brother's prone form until Jeannie gasps, "My lands," and ducks under his other arm. She seems intent on leading him back the way they came, which, hell no.

Gritting his teeth, he does his best to brace against the gentle pull, and how sad is it that two people in their seventies are winning that tug of war? "No," he finally grunts. "I wanna stay here. I can do the research I need from right here. Just need a chair and that journal I got from the car."

"The hell you will," Jeannie reprimands. "You need to rest if you wanna build up your strength."

"And what good will that do if those things keep us pinned down here until we run out of food or electricity? Or Dean's..." He swallows around the possibility. It hasn't been spoken yet, and maybe that's the only thing keeping it from coming to pass.

"You watch your mouth, boy," she scolds. "I happen to have it on good authority that your brother wants you to get better before you worry your head about him."

Sam laughs, small and mirthless. "Which is how he ended up in this condition to begin with. Stupid, stubborn..." He starts to sway, even with a person at each arm to keep him steady. He's grateful when the rocker/recliner slides up behind him, and he sinks in so fast he almost goes over backward.

"Takes one to know one, I think," Jeannie tsks, one hand on her hip, even though she's breathing too hard with exertion to make a convincing show of force. Her shoulders sag when she glances behind her to where Dean lies, grey and gasping. "And I'd bet anything he's used to winning this game. He ain't gonna quit unless you do. Running yourself into the ground ain't doin' either one of ya's any good."

"Well," Sam pants, "then it's a good thing I can do research sitting down." Working up his best, most charming smile, despite the way pain drags at the corners of his mouth, he grasps one of Jeannie's arthritic hands between both of his. "No running into the ground or anywhere else. I promise."

For a second, she melts, but she's been around too long for it to last. Steeling herself, she jerks her hand from his grasp. "I hope those bastards eat you," she snaps. "It's preferable to watching you kill yerselves." She wipes his sweat off her hand in the hem of her shirt and stalks off behind the sheet curtain.

Cappy shrugs. "Nothing crabbier than a broody mother hen," he says by way of apology. "Only way I ever found to cure that partic'lar affliction is a nice pot of boiling water. They're a little tough, but it's better than getting your ass pecked to shreds every time you go in the coop." His joke falls flat, mostly because Sam's too busy trying to decide if the chair's rocking or the room is. "What I'm trying to say is, she means well."

"I know she does," Sam concedes. "It's nice, actually. To know someone cares." He glances in Dean's direction again, watches his struggling breaths like each one will be the last. "We get so used to being anonymous. Just dropping in long enough to do our jobs and then leaving again. We're not used to people caring about whether we make it or not."

Cappy pats him on the shoulder, solid reassurance. "Well, we do. And she does." Then he laughs, rubs a hand over the stubble on his chin like it misses the weight of his pipe drooped against it. "Worse comes to worst, we can always eat her. I'm sure she won't mind. Hell, she'd probably jump in the pot of her own accord if she thought it'd help."

It's Sam's turn to laugh. "Yeah, I think I see that about her." They're silent for a few seconds, and as an afterthought, Sam asks, "Olga and Armando?"

"Armando's at the top of the stairs guarding the door. Olga's having a tough time of it, poor girl. She's a mite claustrophobic. Dark place like this gives her fits. Jeannie gave her some potatoes to peel to keep her mind off things. The rate she's going, she'll have peeled the whole sack by morning. Don't ask me what we'll do with 'em after that. Probably all black on the bottom already." He shrugs, "But you know, routine's good for keeping the demons at bay."

Sam remembers Dean, the night Sam announced he was going to California and Dad gave him the famous ultimatum. The time it took Sam to gather up just what he could fit in his duffel bag and hit the door was silent except for the scrape, scrape, scrape of Dean's knife over the whetstone. Only the pink tinge to the blade and the barely perceptible tremble in Dean's chin had given any clue it wasn't just a night like any other. "Yeah." Suddenly, he thinks maybe Jeannie was right about resting. He's more tired now than he's ever been, past and present burdens weighing in together as though one isn't enough to do him in.

Jeannie must sense the quiet starting to crush in on them, because she chooses that second to burst back through the curtain carrying the journal. One stubborn eyebrow crooked and her lips pursed defiantly, she drops it unceremoniously in Sam's lap and points a knotted finger at him, three four beats in the air as if she can't find the words to back it up, and then she storms back out.

Both men laugh with only the weakest commitment as Sam fumbles through the pages in search of anything and everything he can use to get them out of this mess.

"Anything in particular you think might be in there?" Cappy asks.

That's good question. Nothing like dog paddling through white water to highlight the necessity of some low-hanging branch to grasp onto, something to focus on other than how tired and sore he is and how he's not getting any less of either. He tilts his head into his chest, drawing hard on what he already knows, what's left elusive and taunting. "Answers to a couple questions. A few inconsistencies. Anything we might have overlooked."

"Like?"

"Well, on thing I don't get is, the first one was solid. We set the trap, waited for it to trip, and when we went to check it, she was inside. It was pretty cut and dry from there," Sam says. "The one in the alcove wasn't even fazed when I took a shot at it. I think they have to be solid before they can be killed, sort of like those sci-fi films where the ships have cloaking devices and shields. You have to get them to take down the shields or find something that takes the shields out yourself."

Cappy nods but doesn't offer any suggestions. Obviously not his area of expertise. "Well, uh, I hope you find something," and with a nod toward Dean, he adds, "the sooner the better. I'll leave you to it. See if I can't get the woman settled down. You know to holler if'n ya need anything."

Sam nods and watches Cappy leave, suddenly more aware than ever that this is all up to him.

"I don't suppose you have any suggestions?" He's talking to Dean, head turned like he expects Dean to answer. He's surprised to find Dean's eyes open, but they're glazed and fixed like just holding back the eyelids takes all of his strength. He knows Dean can't answer, but it's just what they do. They plan. They strategize. Where one comes up short, the other chimes in. They toss out the knowns, speculate about the unknowns, and somehow, between the two of them, they figure things out. Now, Sam's on his own, but he's kinda hoping the strategizing parts of his brain don't know that yet.

"What?" Sam pretends to listen, his eyes closed as he searches for that perfect little thinking place in his brain, where it's all as effortless as dreaming. Instead of some helpful continuation on his theory about spacheships and shields, he imagines Dean doing what Dean does... giving him shit for being a geek. Sam plays along. "Dean, nobody wants to hear about your thrusters."

"Speak for yourself," Jeannie admonishes. Sam opens his eyes just enough to see her tucking the sheet around Dean's feet, a tired twinkle in her eyes. He hadn't even heard her sneak in.

"Okay," he corrects. "Some people want to hear all about your thrusters, _after _we get out of this mess." He pretends to listen again. "No, we don't have any pie. How can you be hungry at a time like this?" Another pause. "Well, you should've eaten your kidwiches instead of feeding them to the dog."

Jethro's been lying on the floor at Sam's feet since they set up the chair, and he whimpers, cocks his head to the side. Sam starts to chuckle, then stops, several images coming to mind at once. First, there's the female chupacabra, pieces of the steak they used to bait the trap still clenched between her jaws and dripping blood. Then, the one that attacked him in the alcove, it's muzzle red and spraying red mist over the ground with every huffing breath. Finally, Dean mustering he strength to give him a seemingly pointless message before passing out. His eyes fly open, his fingers opening spastically like he's been hit with a jolt of eureka juice. _Goat sucker, vampire, blood. _Reaching down, Sam levers the back of the chair up to a straighter sitting position. He leans closer to Dean, close enough to feel the heat radiating off him in waves, and says, "Dude, you're a genius." He listens for a second, then adds, "Jerk."

He cranes his head around toward Jeannie. "You've got a deep freeze down here, right?"

"Yeah, that we do," she says. "It ain't running right now, but it's full so everything in there should stay cold."

"Doesn't matter," Sam says. "Any meat in there?"

Cappy's jerks the sheet aside, pokes his head in, his face screwed up in genuine bewilderment. "What the hell else would you need a deep freeze for?" he asks.

Sam laughs, "I dunno. Ice cream? Anyway, I have an idea. Can you spare a few steaks, maybe a dozen?"

"What would you want with those? There's no way to cook 'em down here," Jeannie says.

Sam shrugs and starts to lower the foot rest slowly, grunting with every excruciating inch. Finally, he looses his lower lip from between his teeth and hisses. "'ts okay. The rarer the better. I need to test a theory."

"Will it help us get out of here?" Cappy asks, already having admonished Sam too many times that he needs his rest and shouldn't be exerting himself any more than necessary.

"I hope so."

"Then, I think we can spare a few. Hell, if it'll get us out of here, I'll marinate 'em and rub 'em with sea salt."

"Just the steaks," Sam says, "And something to help me stand. A cane or something."

"Now, wait a minute, son." Cappy nods to Jeannie to go fetch the steaks and presses Sam back in the chair. "Anything you need done, you can get one of us to do for you."

"Not this," Sam argues, his hand constricting around Cappy's bicep. "I need to see for myself. And you need to keep an eye on my brother. Just get me on my feet and let me get us out of this."

Jeannie comes back with an armful of frozen steaks wrapped in white freezer paper, which she drops on an end table. She brushes the traces of frost off the front of her blouse and abruptly pings Sam on the ear. "Every bit as stubborn as your brother," she tsks. "And for that I owe you a smack upside the head, just as soon as you're better." Then, her face softens, and she smooths a thumb over his cheek. "But I have every faith that's going to get us out of this." She turns on her heel and smacks her husband on the shoulder. "You heard the boy. Let's get this show on the road." Her voice is light, but she's got her eyes on Dean when she says it, something like panic in the whites.

Sam follows her gaze, his heart clenching at the sight of his brother, so sick, and he's never been more grateful for maternal instinct. He's not sure he could do this alone.

#

It turns out getting him on his feet is just wishful thinking on Sam's part. There's no way he bear any kind of weight on his mangled leg. As soon as his toes touch the ground, his knee buckles no matter how hard he wills it to lock in position. Sam's not the only one with a streak of ingenuity going down his backbone. Cappy breaks the legs off a bar stool and forms a support cage around Sam's knee, holds the whole thing together with Ace wrap and duct tape.

"A regular MacGyver," Sam observes.

"Who?" Cappy asks.

"Nngh..." Sam grunts through the pain of the final wrap tightening. "No one." He finally muscles to his feet with Cappy's help and sways. "I think that's got it. Now, all we gotta do is wait for that meat to thaw out. You got a microwave down here?"

"Sure, sure we do," Cappy says, "but microwaved meat tastes like..."

Jeannie cups him upside the head. "'tain't for us, you buffoon." She shakes her head, eyes rolling comically as she spares Sam a glance before taking the steaks up again. "I'll see what I can do," she huffs.

Once she's made her exit, Sam slumps back in the chair to wait. "You said Armando's guarding the door?"

"That's what I said," Cappy nods.

"I'm probably going to need his help. You think he'd be willing to back me up?"

"I don't know why not," Cappy shrugs.

"Well, have you told him yet?" Sam ventures. "About his brother?"

"About?" Cappy's face goes pasty as he realizes what Sam's talking about. "No, no I haven't. Do you think it's a good idea to tell him now? Might make it hard for him to focus."

"Or easier," Sam suggests. Nodding toward Dean he says, "If something happened to Dean, I think I'd..."

"...want a piece of whatever did that to him," Cappy finishes. "I guess it's only fair if I tell him," he concedes.

"Gotta know where his head's at if we're gonna do this."

"You're right." Cappy shifts the sheet aside and starts to exit.

"Cappy," Sam calls.

"Yeah?"

"Tell him I'm sorry."

Cappy nods, turns to leave, and Sam's alone again with the weight of impending doom and his ailing brother. God, he's tired. He leans his head back against the chair, listens to the microwave hum somewhere in the dark. He doesn't mean to doze off, but he does.

When he wakes, it's with a start, his breathing quick and ragged like he's just finished a race. He thinks maybe the microwave timer has gone off and set him off in the process. He's never usually one to wake with an alarm. His internal clock's always served him well, and to be honest, he's so high strung, the things usually send him through the roof.

It takes him a good thirty seconds of staring at the goosebumps rising on the exposed parts of his arm before he realizes what's wrong. It's not a beep, a buzz, or any noise that's wakened him. Not any noise at all. More like, the lack of one in particular.

It's too quiet. Jethro notices it at about the same time as Sam, leaps to his feet with a whimper, his head cocked to the side. He runs to the side of the couch and nuzzles at Dean's hand, whimpering and making excited little barks. When Dean doesn't move, he nips his teeth into the sheet, teeny, tiny, little anxious bites like he's trying to scrape corn off a cob.

Dean's not breathing. He's not breathing, not coughing, not shaking like the previous two are at war inside his chest. He's just, still.

And blue.

"Dean!" He looks over his shoulder for Cappy, can't see where anyone else is for the sheet. "Help! Somebody help!" He yells, already in the process of levering himself up on his newly-splinted leg. He makes it to a stand just fine, but the first step is a bitch, and he lands on the couch beside Dean, his hip nearly crushing the limp arm dangling off the edge.

"Dean! Wake up!" He doesn't even try to hide his panic, both hands cupped around Dean's shoulders and shaking him. "Dean!"

"Hold on there, son." Cappy's at the head of the couch, sliding his fingers down to check Dean's pulse before Sam even hears the sheet rustle. Sam stops trying to rouse his brother long enough for Cappy to determine if there's a heart beat, but his hands don't stop shaking for even a second.

Cappy nods brusquely, says, "Still got a pulse. Help me lever him up." Sam does as he's told, grasping Dean beneath the rib cage while Cappy lifts up from under his armpits. Neither one is in any shape to be moving this amount of dead weight, but they get it done in two motions.

With Dean sitting almost straight up, Cappy says, "You catch his head, now Sam," and pushes Dean's torso forward until his head lands on Sam's shoulder. His forehead's clammy, the ends of his hair damp.

"Okay, now you rub your hands up and down his ribcage. Don't be gentle about it either. Put some muscle behind it. Let's hope he's a little ticklish."

Sam does, and Cappy does the same on Dean's upper back, brisk strokes with the heels of his hands. Sam's movements get harder and faster, more desperate at the seconds tick by with no response. "You really think this will work?"

Cappy doesn't say yes or no, even that he doesn't know, just, "Sometimes it works... on puppies and newborn calves." Sam meets the old man's eyes, feels the hope bleeding out of him, disillusionment stepping into the void. "We gotta try," Cappy says, unapologetic.

Fuck yeah. Sam knows better than to give up on a long shot just because it's a long shot. He rubs harder, with renewed intensity and vigor. The bandages on his arms start to unwind and tangle in his hands, but he keeps going. "Come on, come on. Don't do this. I'm going to figure this out. I just need a little more time." His arms are burning and he's breathing a little hard himself. "C'mon you stubborn jackass. Do it for me, okay?"

A few more hard rubs, and Sam can see Cappy start to slow his effort, a slight shake to his head as he ducks his gaze away from Sam's.

"No," Sam breathes, a sob choking him. "No."

TBC

A/N: Ugh, I'm evil.


End file.
